The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is a manual for mental health professionals and researchers listing categories of mental disorders and the criteria for diagnosing them. It is important to realize that the categories and criteria are not universally agreed upon; in fact, they are often the target of criticism and the center of fierce debates. This article will list the DSM-IV criteria for anorexia nervosa and briefly outline the debate surrounding them.

The first criterion for anorexia nervosa is a refusal to maintain body weight at or above a minimally normal weight for age and height (e.g., weight loss leading to maintenance of body weight less than 85% of that expected or failure to make expected weight gain during period of growth, leading to body weight less than 85% of that expected). As one would perhaps expect, researchers have argued that this is subjective, pointing out that the weight criterion has actually varied over the years.

The second DSM-IV criterion for anorexia nervosa is an intense fear of gaining weight or becoming fat, even though underweight. A number of criticisms have been directed towards this criterion. Fat phobia, which is defined as an intense fear of becoming overweight or obese, is certainly a central feature in many anorexia cases. However, researchers have identified a non fat-phobic form or anorexia. The presence of fat phobia in patients with anorexia is often measured with the Eating Disorder Inventory. The Eating Disorder Inventory consists of 64 items designed to assess the cognitive-behavioral symptomatology assumed to underlie eating disorders. Of the eight subscales included in the measure, one is labeled Drive for Thinness; it is this subscale that assesses the patient's level of fat phobia. Initially, it was assumed that all patients with anorexia would score high on the Drive for Thinness subscale; however cross-cultural studies have revealed that some patients with anorexia seem to be non-fat phobic, and even within Western cultures, there have been reports of anorexia in its non-fat phobic form. In 1983, Garfinkel, Kaplan, Garner, and Darby reported the existence of a group of non-fat phobic "atypical" patients, and a significant number of patients with anorexia in Asian cultures display this non-fat phobic version of anorexia: in a Hong Kong study of Chinese patients, 59% were non-fat phobic and in a Japanese study, 26.6% were non-fat phobic. More recently, Ramacciotti

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