Even as recently as the 1970s, anorexia remained something of a clinical oddity – a disease that doctors rarely saw, let alone had a clue how to treat. When psychologist Laura Hill saw her first anorexia patient at a university counselling centre back in 1979, she had never even heard of the disorder: “Her father was in the science department there and I had to ask him what anorexia was,” recalled Hill. “He told me she was unable to gain weight, afraid of food.”