The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. Nice save, here. Lankiveil (speak to me) 10:59, 31 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Disordered eating (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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This content should be merged to eating disorder. A distinction is made that this is a behavior associated with "eating disorders", but that people doing this may not have an eating disorder. I am unable to find this distinction sufficiently made in papers in a PubMed or Google search, and the sources here do not meet WP:RS.

I think this article confuses the concept of an eating disorder and ought to be deleted to be made into a redirect. Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:29, 30 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Mark viking I do not feel strongly about this and perhaps the article could be kept. I agree that at least thousands of sources use this term, and that many of them are respectable publications. Neither the sources you cited nor any others I have seen, to me, make good distinction between "disordered eating" and an "eating disorder". "Disordered eating" seems to be the behavior that people with eating disorders do, and doing disordered eating does not mean that someone has an eating disorder, but the concepts seem very close to me. There could be an article on "problematic alcohol drinking" which is separate from "alcohol abuse", because even more sources talk about bad use of alcohol which is not abuse. People make the distinction in lots of literature but in my opinion, the concepts are very close and I know of no where else on Wikipedia where concepts like these are distinguished. You are completely correct that lots of sources use this term. I still think this should be deleted, perhaps because of WP:FORK. If content exists to distinguish disordered eating and eating disorder then it is not in this article right now and not in the sources you provided. Thanks for commenting. Someone could save this article, maybe. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:49, 10 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Medicine-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:41, 31 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Behavioural science-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:41, 31 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, NorthAmerica1000 02:59, 7 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]


Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, czar  05:00, 15 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]


Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Rcsprinter123 (chinwag) @ 20:24, 22 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Here is a quote from a 2013 review by an old colleague of mine, Dianne Neumark-Sztainer & colleagues, in Adv. Nutr. 4: 277–286, 2013; doi:10.3945/an.112.003608 "Chronic Illness and Disordered Eating: A Discussion of the Literature" [1]

It is important to delineate disordered eating from eating disorders. Eating disorders are defined as a “clinically meaningful behavioral or psychological pattern having to do with eating or weight that is associated with distress, disability, or with substantially increased risk of morbidity or mortality”. On the other hand, disordered eating behaviors are abnormal behaviors associated with eating disorders, such as restraint eating; emotional eating; disinhibited eating; night eating; binge eating; weight, shape, and eating concerns; strict dieting; and controlling one’s body weight and shape through inappropriate compensatory behaviors (e.g., purging) that do not warrant a psychiatric diagnosis of an eating disorder such as anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition

This isn't the precise way in which we used the term in my lab, but it gets at the basics. The review covers disordered eating associated with a number of diseases, like diabetes, cyctic fibrosis, celiac disease, & a couple of bowel diseases. The disordered eating arises from the disease and the diet imposed on the patients, putting them at risk for eating disorders. Here's a disturbing quote:

On the Internet, there are now >100 proanorexia Web sites that not only encourage disordered eating but offer specific advice on purging, severely restricting caloric intake, and exercising excessively.

Here is the context in which I'm more familiar seeing the term:

Clinicians who see children need to understand that spending a minute discussing children's media use may be as important as explaining the importance of a bicycle helmet, particularly if a child is showing signs of school difficulty, aggressiveness, disordered eating, or poor sleep patterns.

A generic term used loosely to mean abnormal eating patterns, with the general connotation that they are unhealthy. (These last two quotes come from this review in Pediatrics: http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/125/4/756.long Dcs002 (talk) 02:48, 23 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Dcs002 The two quotations you present at the bottom are still not convincing to me. While I recognize frequent use of the term "disordered eating", I still think that the concept being discussed in these cases is equivalent to the behavior which defines an "eating disorder", and that there is nothing distinct to say about it.
The other source at least says that eating disorders and disordered eating are worth distinguishing, but I worry that this is still a distinction without a difference because this still seems like the behaviors which define a diagnosis. For practically any behavioral disorder, there is some disordered behavior which defines the behavioral disorder and which a person can have without meeting diagnostic criteria for that behavioral disorder.
What you say in the following part about "disordered eating associated with a number of diseases" is something completely different, because in those cases, we are talking about pressures from a health condition which cause behavior changes. When people have a physiological cause for behavior change then I might expect that the underlying cause of the change be treated before trying to change the person's behavior, whereas in other cases discussed, behavioral intervention alone could conceivably be a treatment.
I am in agreement with you that the information about eating disorders should be removed from here in any case. It might be a good compromise to keep this article, delete all information which certainly does not belong, then see what is left. I expect it would be easy to find consensus about what should be deleted. Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:48, 27 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Blue Rasberry , your comment "equivalent to the behavior which defines an 'eating disorder'" is key. The behaviors don't define eating disorders. Disorders require other criteria, e.g., irrational belief that one is fat and ugly, refusal to maintain body weight, and amenorrhea (for anorexia nervosa). Disordered eating is the abnormal eating behavior on its own, regardless of any eating disorder. Disordered eating can encompass things like night eating syndrome and other abnormal meal patterns, which are unrelated to eating disorders, and treatment isn't necessarily appropriate. Disordered eating can result from some physiological conditions, such as Alzheimer's disease or traumatic brain injury, in which case patients might lose appetite regulation or memory and regularly forget to eat. Disordered eating is a category that includes many behaviors, and a patient may exhibit any of those behaviors, for any reason, in the absence of an eating disorder. An eating disorder represents a specific collection of signs and symptoms that satisfy diagnostic criteria, some behavioral and some physiological (e.g., amenorrhea and underweight), though all include some sort of disordered eating. Remember also that "eating disorder" includes multiple disorders, and "disordered eating" is a category including multiple behaviors. No pattern of disordered eating defines eating disorders, and again, some patterns of disordered eating are not related to any eating disorder.
Enough information about eating disorders should remain in this article to explain that disordered eating can be a risk factor for development of eating disorders. The distinction between disordered eating and eating disorders should be made clear in the article with this discussion of the one being a risk factor for developing the other. Dcs002 (talk) 00:09, 28 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I rewrote what was in this article. Nearly all of it was improperly-sourced or referred to eating disorders. I used references from 4 journal articles (all reviews) and a website sanctioned by The Mental Health Programs and Services division of the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long Term Care. It might be a stub or starter class, but I think there's enough there now to satisfy notability, verifiability, and distinction from eating disorders. The distinction is made pretty clearly in the sources. Of note is the study (reviewed in reference 5) showing 5% of women with disordered eating also had an eating disorder, unless they were athletes, in which case 18% of those with disordered eating had an eating disorder. Clinically and academically they are two separate entities and should not be confused. I'll add a hatnote to the page to clarify further. Dcs002 (talk) 08:45, 31 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.