HONOLULU – There are four factors that can help distinguish a girl who has an eating disorder from one who simply diets, Catherine M. Shisslak, Ph.D., said at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association.
More than 50% of adolescent girls report dieting, either chronically, or intermittently, or occasionally, according to the results of a longitudinal study that followed 1,170 girls for 4 years through high school.
Any girl who reports dieting in the past year and has these four other risk factors–high body mass index, onset of menstruation before the sixth grade, overly concerned with weight or shape, and teasing by peers–should be carefully screened for an eating disorder, Dr. Shisslak said in a poster presentation.
Those factors correctly identified 88% of the girls in the study who reported that they were chronic dieters. Eighty percent of the girls who were chronic dieters had an eating disorder at the start of the study or developed one during high school.
The unexpected finding of the study was that peer teasing appeared to play such a prominent role in the eating disorders, Dr. Shisslak said in an interview. Past studies have noted that critical comments about weight from parents can be implicated in the development of an eating disorder. But this study suggests that comments from peers can be much more influential and devastating. It also suggests that the girl who does not report regular dieting but suddenly starts a diet may be more likely to develop an eating disorder than the girl who occasionally but regularly diets. Eight percent of those girls classified as intermittent dieters were found to have an eating disorder, compared with 2% of those who were occasional dieters.
Intermittent dieters were defined as those who reported dieting only 1 or 2 years during the 4 years of the study.
Dr. Shisslak and her coinvestigators followed the girls using a 103-question survey, completed each year. They also measured height and weight annually to determine body mass index, and they personally conducted a semistructured interview designed to identify eating disorders.