TV REVIEW : BULIMIA GOES TO SCHOOL

Bulimia got prime-time exposure last November with the NBC movie “Kate’s Secret,” about an adult woman with an unhealthy craving for food. Now comes a daytime drama for young people about the disorder, “Little Miss Perfect,” about a teen-age girl who regularly overeats and then induces vomiting.

The latest installment of the “CBS Schoolbreak Special,” airing today at 3 p.m. on Channels 2 and 8, may be of value in making teenagers aware of bulimia and its consequences--the girl winds up in the hospital with a ruptured esophagus--but it isn’t much of a story.

Most of the hourlong drama, which was written by Alan L. Gansberg and marks the directing debut of Marsha Mason, focuses on the pressures that drive high-school student Mary (Mary Tanner) to find comfort in food--a demanding mother (Diane Baker), a new school, a new stepfather, new friends--and on depicting her eating binges and “purges,” as the self-induced vomiting is called.

The resolution is short and far too neat, with Mary’s hospitalization the catalyst for a major change in her mother’s parenting philosophy. One hopes it won’t unintentionally reinforce the notion among troubled teen-agers that acting out problems in this fashion will solve them.