Obesity, Anorexia Nervosa, and Bulimia: A General Overview

Abstract

The ideal circumstance, supposedly, is that we eat and drink the calories that we use while at the same time providing some slight surplus, as a safety factor, of essential nutrients. Additionally, the concept has emerged that it is possible to develop dietary habits which promote health and longevity. In the course of the daily regimen of ingestion, we must avoid poisons, including the poisons produced by the ubiquitous bacteria and fungi that are present with food. We have come to recognize that there are not only poisons having immediate effects, but poisons having effects due to their slow accumulation. All of this must be done with the limited resources imposed by our ecological niche.