Starvation diets and the cycle of bingeing and purging have long been considered afflictions of affluent white females in their teens and 20's. Although medical literature in recent years has shown eating disorders spreading across class, race and gender lines and striking girls at ever younger ages, the next large group of sufferers, many experts predict, will be middle-aged women. The anxieties of midlife — divorce, marital strains, parental deaths, empty-nest syndrome and menopause — are powerful catalysts for older women's eating disorders, the experts say.

At its core, an eating disorder, whatever the age of the sufferer, typically results from feelings that one's life is "out of control," as patients tell clinicians, with compulsive food monitoring offering an illusion of emotional management.

Like adolescence, the years before menopause can prompt fears about progressing to life's next stage. "The 12-year-old anorectic doesn't want to deal with the feeling of becoming a woman, and the 50-year-old doesn't want to deal with the idea of lost youth," NY Times
What about males at mid-life? MG+