Are All Eating Disorders the Same? Eating disorders have always been a factor in society. Bulimia and anorexia are often thought of as being interchangeable when in fact they are completely different. These two eating disorders by definition are completely different. They both affect different age groups and genders. People suffering from these two disorders have a very different appearance about themselves. Although these two disorders are very dangerous they are also very different. Anorexia is an eating disorder where a person consumes very little amounts of food to refrain from gaining weight. Although some people with anorexia do not loose their appetite, the term literally means “loss of appetite”. Bulimia is an eating disorder characterized by a person consuming large amounts of food then getting rid of the food. Some people either vomit or use laxatives to rid their body of the food consumed. Anorexia and bulimia are completely different disorders by their definition. Anorexia often starts to affect people as early as nine to twelve years old. This disorder can affect both men and women; however, studies show that this disorder is shown in women ten times more than in men. Unlike anorexia, people develop bulimia at a later age. Often the onset of bulimia is fifteen to twenty years old. Bulimia is nine times prominent in women over men. The onset of these two disorders occurs at very different times in a person’s life. A person with anorexia is relatively