Angelina Jolie shocked everyone with her slim appearance at the recent Oscars. She has stirred debate among health experts, who felt that she has been suffering from eating disorder. It was the best time to talk about issue as National Eating Disorders Awareness Week is going on.

Recently, Dr. Emmett Bishop, who is founding partner and Medical Director of adult services at Eating Recovery Center, discussed the topic `Anorexia and Aging: Is There a Silent Crisis of Eating Disorders in Older Women?'

He talked about some of the lesser known facts about eating disorders and how it varies in different age groups. It needs not to be mentioned that eating disorder is primarily found in women. Bishop said that he can divide eating disorder in women according to their age. First group comprises of adolescents and then comes midlife women. Last group comprises of elderly women.

Elderly women are found to be struggling with eating disorder problem more than any of the two groups. "Distinctions between the two groups really have not been studied. However, in my clinical experience, many of the eating disorders I have seen in older women - versus those in midlife - are atypical", said Bishop.

Ill effects of eating disorder cannot be ignored, said Bishop, who further affirmed that the harmful effects keep on increasing with the age. Some of the known medical complications occurring due to eating disorders are kidney dysfunction, cardiac issues, and dental problems among other problems.

Dieting is common among teenagers, but this habit is the reason which transforms into eating disorder habit. Bishop said that younger women develop dieting habit and guilty of having food keeps on increasing till the time they become eating disorder patients.