Shy about public eating: A precursor to anorexia?

Whenever Leslie Lipton was handed a menu, she'd freeze. She suddenly would feel that all eyes were upon her, noticing and judging her eating habits. This was something she couldn't quite swallow when she was a teenager.
"I'd sit there, and I'd wait, and I'd see what everyone else was ordering before I ordered," says Lipton, now 21 and a student at Barnard College in New York City.
Lunch in the high school cafeteria felt like a competition. "Everyone would be looking at everyone else's tray to see what everyone else was eating," says Lipton. "If you eat less, at least the comparisons are good."

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