many women are spurred to diet after learning the tricks of anorexics and bulimics through documentaries or magazine articles warning against eating disorders. An educational program at Stanford University in the 1990s, designed to prevent eating disorders by letting students hear firsthand about their hazards, backfired: The students became more likely to imitate the behaviors they were supposed to avoid. The program featured two young woman, one a recovered anorexic and the other a recovered bulimic, who made a presentation to a psychology class. There was one problem: The women were
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Eating disorders are contagious
