Anyone can develop an eating disorder, at any age. It is actually quite common to happen after a divorce, or after having a baby.

Anyone can become anorexic - my mum was diagnosed with it aged 45. However, it does more often than not have roots in the childhood or teenage years, even if it didn't show itself as anorexia then.

Yes, many dieting, angry self loathing women with low self esteem in their 40's and 50's with this disorder. They lose their periods and do many things to harm their being and accelerate their aging process. First they become obsessed with their digestion, weight, plastic surgery, laxative use, until this is their only topic of boring self centered conversation. Others are subjected to long negative tirades about diets, how fat they are, about their BM's ,who they hate now and how fat and ugly everyone they know and don't know is. This nonstop hate filled heavy talk must be constantly endured by anyone unlucky enough to be within ear shot. Their bizar body chemistry is soon destroyed and more and more crazy they become. Soon they are in a constant irritable egocentric mood, unable to sleep and may watch TV up to 20 hours a day. They are impossible to live with due to strange obsessive compulsive behaviors that come hand and hand with the " I Can't be FAT Fear". They can't help but bother people by doing strange things like folowing then into the bathroom, or compulsively checking on rooms in the house to make sure everything is they way they needs it to be, Snooping through peoples belongings when they think no one is looking or will find out becasue they are paranoid. This paranoia causes them to think every giggle and conversation has something to do with them. Their only concern is themselves and their their constant sometimes hourly weigh ins. These sick people find it impossible and even at their best, its extremely difficult for them to comprehend anything beyond the most superficial, which is apparent in their their homes : Pride in a empty kitchen sink but its next to a mold infested fridge and stinky trash can. ; a fluffed out bathroom rug is a must , but a dust/scuzfilled hand towel in need of laundering is adjusted and rearranged 12 times a day. a fruit bowl arranged and placed a certain way on a table next to a dusty sofa litered with their hair that is falling in spades out all over the house. These old women with this disease cannot control themselves; their romantic, and economic failures and upcoming doom to being unhirable. Their lives are out of control and by trying to control their weight and others is only a sick and vain attempt to get control of life. They try to control everyone around them by developing a dictator personality,and even when uneducated they force their negative opinions, boring lifestyle and self embarrassing ways unto others no matter how uncomfortable others politely let them know they find them boring and annoying. Their whacked out damaged nervous system from the obsessive and compulsive behavior and rituals for quick weight loss, including but not linited to overdosing on Metamucil they become more and chemically imbalanced each and every day. Finally paranoia takes center stage in their mental-illness.. Their neurosis distorts their thoughts, sleeping patterns. They experience more and stronger heart palpation's as their self abuse destroys their body and those around them. The uncontrollable talking and blaming of others for their problems, because they cannot see themselves for the strange thing they are. theirs is a distorted view. A life time of failed marriages broken relationships, abusing people, and without a friend to take interest in them or spend time with them they sink deeper and deeper into their self inflicted madness. Their grown children fail to visit to avoid being called fat, being controlled, and abused by this paranoid mentally imbalanced diet person.