The stages of anorexia nervosa: Overview
In our longitudinal study where we interviewed some people over a period of 5 years, we realised that people seem to have a sort of journey through different stages of anorexia nervosa, which different general characteristics to each stage, although obviously each person is different and an individual. We called these stages:
• Stage 1: Small Beginnings
• Stage 2: Getting Caught Up in Anorexia Nervosa
• Stage 3: Beginning to Struggle
• Stage 4: Deciding to Fight Back
• Stage 4B: Getting Stuck
• Stage 5: Re-entering the Real World
• Stage 6: Freedom at Last
We came up with a sort of diagram to describe how people might move through the stages, jokingly called a ‘tube map':
It appeared to us that people could sometimes move backwards a stage or be in more than one stage at a time, especially stage 4B combined with features of another stage such as stage 2, 3 or 4. Generally, however, people tended to move forwards, although sometimes they got stuck in stage 4B.
To read a description for each stage of anorexia nervosa, click here.