‘Terminal anorexia’: a lived experience perspective on the proposed criteria
Open accessAbstract
In an article (Asaria in J Eat Disord 11:107, 2023) recently published by the Journal of Eating Disorders, I expressed my lived experience views on the concept of 'terminal anorexia nervosa' (AN), and why I believe that this is a harmful new term. The article was not a response to the original paper in which Gaudiani et al. (J Eat Disord 10:23, 2022) proposed criteria for the label. However, as a result of feedback that my article did not appreciate their criteria, I have written this follow-up paper to build on and reinforce what I previously wrote. This article outlines problems with each criterion in turn, again from my lived experience perspective. It then addresses dangerous ambiguities around how the criteria can be applied safely, and their confusing purpose in the real world. Finally, I discuss the impact of labelling AN sufferers with terms that may suggest their wholehearted allegiance to the illness, in both life and death (or 'till death do us part').
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1 retracted
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- Authors
- Asaria, A.
- Corresponding author
- Asaria, Alykhan
- ORCID
- Asaria, Alykhan
- Venue
- Journal of Eating Disorders
- Published
- 2023-12-11
- Volume
- 11
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 222-222
- ISSN
- 2050-2974 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC10714550
- OpenAlex
- W4389556068
- Cited by
- 11
- References
- 22
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 4
- FWCI
- 3.20
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- Journal of Eating Disorders (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- Springer Nature
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Eating Disorders and Behaviors
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Mental Health and Psychiatry
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Psychological Treatments and Disorders
- Keywords
- anorexia nervosa, diagnostic criteria, lived experience, diagnostic terminology, eating disorder diagnosis
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