Which eating disorder is primarily based on significant weight loss and nutritional deficiency?

Anorexia Nervosa is characterized primarily by significant weight loss and nutritional deficiency. Individuals with this disorder often have an intense fear of gaining weight and a distorted body image, leading them to restrict their food intake significantly. This restriction can result in severe malnutrition and related health complications, making weight loss a key feature of the diagnosis. The criteria outlined in the DSM-5-TR emphasize the importance of a severely low body weight in the context of age, sex, and developmental trajectory, highlighting the disorder’s focus on both weight and nutrition.

In contrast, other eating disorders, while they may involve unhealthy eating patterns, do not primarily focus on significant weight loss and nutritional deficiency. For example, Bulimia Nervosa involves cycles of binge eating followed by compensatory behaviors like purging, but individuals may maintain a relatively normal body weight. Unspecified Feeding and Eating Disorder is a diagnosis used when the criteria for any specific eating disorder are not fully met, thus not emphasizing significant weight loss as its main feature. Binge-Eating Disorder is characterized by recurrent episodes of eating large quantities of food without compensatory behaviors and can lead to weight gain rather than explicit weight loss.