Adolescent Dieting: Healthy Weight Control or Borderline Eating Disorder?
- 1 March 1997
- journal article
- Published by Wiley in Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry
- Vol. 38 (3), 299-306
- https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-7610.1997.tb01514.x
Abstract
Dieting in adolescent girls is ubiquitous but its health significance is uncertain. On the one hand it might be seen as promoting healthy weight control and on the other it might be considered as a risk, factor for eating disorders. Dieting levels were systematically assessed in a representative group of 252? Australian teenagers and classified using item response theory. In this group, 38% of girls and 12 % of boys we re categorised as intermediate dieters; 7% of girls and 1% of boys fell into a group of extreme dieters. Body mass carried a strong post the association with intermediate dieting. Most female dieters, nevertheless, fell within a normal weight range. Psychiatric morbidity was the clearest factor associated with extreme dieting and 62 % of extreme dieters reported high levels of depression and anxiety. Extreme dieting might reasonably be viewed as lying on a spectrum with clinical eating disorders. Most dieting is unjustified on the grounds of appropriate weight control and appears to reflect a widespread striving of teenage girls towards body shapes at the lower end of age-adjusted norms.Keywords
This publication has 33 references indexed in Scilit:
- Patterns of common drug use in teenagersAustralian Journal of Public Health, 1995
- Defining Subgroups of Dieting Disorder Patients by Means of the Eating Disorders Examination (EDE)The British Journal of Psychiatry, 1995
- Adolescent Girls II Background Factors in Anxiety and Depressive StatesThe British Journal of Psychiatry, 1994
- From the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Health risk behaviors among adolescents who do and do not attend school--United States, 1992Published by American Medical Association (AMA) ,1994
- Abnormal eating attitudes in London schoolgirls — a prospective epidemiological study: outcome at twelve month follow-upPsychological Medicine, 1990
- Abnormal eating attitudes in London schoolgirls — a prospective epidemiological study: factors associated with abnormal response on screening questionnairesPsychological Medicine, 1988
- Dieting in Teenage Schoolgirls A Longitudinal Prospective StudyActa Paediatrica, 1983
- Current approaches to the etiology and treatment of anorexia nervosa.Psychological Bulletin, 1978
- Current approaches to the etiology and treatment of anorexia nervosa.Psychological Bulletin, 1978
- Some extraordinary facts about obese humans and rats.American Psychologist, 1971