Anorexia nervosa in black adolescents

Anorexia nervosa has been considered rare or nonexistent among blacks. A report of the presentation and clinical course of this disorder in two black female adolescents illustrates a serious medical psychiatric problem that may be increasingly detected among predisposed teenagers of the black middle and professional classes. Unrecognized and incorrectly treated, the disease may run a fatal course in 20 percent of the cases. Differential diagnosis, etiology, and treatment of the condition are reviewed.