It is paradoxical that while indices of health and wellbeing indicate that many in the Western world are living longer and healthier lives, there are a significant number of young women who engage in eating behaviours that are highly detrimental to health and can, in the extreme, result in starvation and death. The phenomenon of disordered eating, in particular highly restrictive eating, has been documented since the late nineteenth century (Gull 1888; Laseque 1873). However, in recent years we have seen a marked increase in the numbers of young women engaging in a range of disordered eating patterns (Machado, Machado, Gonçalves and Hoek 2007). One factor that has been proposed as playing a causal role in the exponential rise in disordered eating in modern society is the emergence of an ideal body shape characterized by low fat and ultra slenderness; a body shape that few women can reasonably achieve. However, despite being inundated with images of the ideal body shape across all forms of popular media, there are many women who do not develop either subclinical eating problems or a diagnozable eating disorder. Indeed, many seem to accept that they do not meet cultural ideals of beauty, and while expressing dissatisfaction with some aspects of their body, do not find themselves in a pattern of increasingly dysfunctional eating behaviour. Thus, it would appear that while socio-cultural factors clearly play a role in body dissatisfaction, there are other factors that increase the risk of developing disordered eating. Recent reviews in this area have made the observation that while socio-cultural factors may 'set the scene' for body-dissatisfaction generally, individual-based factors may drive specific eating disorder symptoms (Striegel-Moore and Bulik 2007). One promising avenue of enquiry has concentrated on personality (Cassin and von Ranson 2005; Lilenfeld et al. 2006). Claridge and Davis (2003, p. 3) have gone so far as to state that personality and psychopathology are so intrinsically linked that 'it is impossible to understand the nature of psychological disorders, including the form in which they take in particular individuals, without knowing something about the personality characteristics from which they spring'. With this statement in mind, the aim of this chapter is to review personality traits that have consistently been found to be associated with disordered eating. In doing so, we focus on those traits associated with women who manage to maintain low body weight (anoretic behaviour) and traits more associated with those who binge and purge (bulimic behaviour). We highlight recent studies that examine the heterogeneity among women with disordered eating that raise questions about the current nosological approach to classifying eating disorder sub-types. We also review the literature on the multidimensional status of personality traits associated with the eating disorders. We conclude with a discussion of how a renewed focus on personality and disordered eating may shine more light on these complex behaviours. Personality and disordered eating There is growing agreement that two broad classes of biologically-based, motivated behaviour underlie personality: the tendency to approach appetitive stimuli and to avoid aversive stimuli (Carver, Sutton and Scheier 2000; Depue and Collins 1999). The tendency to avoid aversive situations and events is variously referred to as Neuroticism, trait anxiety, harm avoidance or behavioural inhibition. Used interchangeably, individuals who score highly on measures of these traits are (i) overly sensitive to and easily aroused by threat; (ii) experience considerable negative affect in potentially aversive situations; and (iii) when in doubt, inhibit ongoing behaviour. On the other hand, the tendency to approach appetitive stimuli typically maps onto such traits as impulsivity, Extraversion and sensation-seeking. Individuals who score highly on measures of these traits tend to (i) seek out novelty; (ii) are highly sensitive to potential reward; and (iii) respond with positive affect to appetitive stimuli. Approach and avoidance tendencies have particularly intuitive appeal when studying disordered eating. Women who restrict their eating and maintain a low body weight are typically characterized by a high avoidance of food/weight gain, whilst women who over-eat and engage in compensatory behaviours tend to be characterized by both approach tendencies (e.g., binge-eating) and avoidance behaviour (e.g., restrictive dieting between binge episodes). Indeed, early clinical reports of eating disorders typically described girls with anorexia nervosa as overly-constrained, anxious and perfectionistic (Bruch 1973), whereas women with buli-mia nervosa were described as antisocial, promiscuous and impulsive (Russell 1979). Such dichotomous portrayals of women who primarily restrict their eating versus those who binge eat is supported in part by contemporary personality research. However, as will be evident, such a dichotomy is not as clear-cut as once thought. Personality disorders, personality traits and disordered eating