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By Keith Mulvihill
NEW YORK, Mar 22 (Reuters Health) - Nearly one third of high school girls and 16% of high school boys show symptoms of an eating disorder, researchers announced on Thursday. The survey is the first national screening of high school students for eating disorders.
Dr. S. Bryn Austin of Children's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, presented her research team's findings at the annual meeting of The Society for Adolescent Medicine, held in San Diego, California.
"While full-blown eating disorders are more rare, very unhealthful eating behaviors are much more common," Austin told Reuters Health in a telephone interview from the meeting.
"It is very important to get young people to seek help from a healthcare professional or a counselor, and that's what we hope to accomplish with the survey. Based on their results, students are encouraged to seek treatment," she said.
The team of researchers evaluated 5,740 surveys out of 35,000 received from students from 152 high schools around the United States. The eating disorder screening surveys were designed to assess the eating habits and weight concerns of the students--asking them specific questions about binge-eating, vomiting, exercising and smoking, for example.
Austin and colleagues found that 12% of the girls and 4% of the boys surveyed said that they vomited to control their weight, and 7% of the girls and 6% of the boys reported binge-eating once per week or more often, Austin told Reuters Health.
"Binge-eating or excessive overeating is more than what people experience at a Thanksgiving Day meal," Austin explained. "These people report that sometimes eating is a compulsion for them that they can't stop. It is often in response to negative emotional triggers about themselves, their body weight or shape."
The girls also responded to specific questions about their menstrual cycles.
"Girls with eating disorders are likely to experience irregular menstrual cycles or miss their periods completely," Austin told Reuters Health. Of the young women who participated in the survey, those who reported vomiting as a means to control their weight were much more likely to have irregular menstrual cycles.
"The results (of the survey) indicate that a sizable minority of high school students have significant eating-disorder symptoms and have not received treatment," the researchers conclude.
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