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Lead section

add information of stereotypes about AAN - comparative high body weight of patients, lack of consensus/information on diagnosis and treatment

Other diagnostic manuals, such as the ICD-11 and earlier editions, continue to include AAN under a grouped label of unspecified disorders rather than its own diagnosis. Researchers point to the lack of official consensus as an issue in treating individuals with AAN.

Diagnosis section

Limitations to diagnosis

Current diagnostic barriers highlighted by researchers include inconclusive definitions of symptoms, over-emphasis on weight as a symptom, and health providers' biases about eating disorder appearances. Following DSM-5 conditions of "significant weight loss" correlates with lower reported rates of AAN; however, even within studies which used higher weight cutoffs to define AAN, patients' other symptoms occurred at similar levels of severity. Researchers critique the primary use of weight cutoffs for its ambiguity and limitations in capturing all patients, who may, due to natural weight fluctuations, evade diagnosis one day and reach the threshold the next. For this reason, some propose a shift toward mental symptoms and other physical effects of malnutrition to diagnose patients.

Alternative diagnostic manuals to the DSM-5 include the ICD-11. However, the ICD-11 also codes AN reliant on an underweight BMI and does not separately code AAN, thus excluding patients who exhibit the same cognitive and behavioral symptoms without the same degree of weight loss. The manual's own unique diagnoses have raised researchers' questions about shifting diagnoses related to the patient's stage of treatment as their weight and other symptoms may improve.