"Clinical observation has long suggested a link between personality and eating disorders. Research has consistently linked anorexia (particularly when the patient does not also have bulimic symptoms) to personality traits such as introversion, conformity, perfectionism, rigidity, and obsessive-compulsive features. The picture for bulimia is more mixed. Traits such as perfectionism, shyness, and compliance have consistently emerged in studies of individuals with bulimia or with anorexia, although research has often found bulimic patients to be extroverted, histrionic, and affectively unstable. Research on personality disorders has also examined the relation between eating disorders and personality and has documented considerable, but highly variable, rates of comorbidity, ranging from 21% to 97% for the presence of any personality disorder in patients with various eating disorder diagnoses. Conversely, patients with personality disorders have a higher than normal prevalence rate for eating disorders. The situation is similar for many axis I disorders, such as mood and anxiety disorders, for which comorbidity with axis II disorders hovers around 50%."