The changing demographic profile of eating disorder behaviors in the community

Deborah Mitchison, Phillipa Hay, Shameran Slewa-Younan, Jonathan Mond

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    Abstract

    Background: The perception that eating disorders occur predominantly in young white upper-class women has been challenged. This study examined temporal differences to the demographic correlates of eating disorder behaviors over a 10-year period. Methods: Data from cross-sectional general population surveys in 1998 (n = 3010) and 2008 (n = 3034) were collected on demographics (sex, age, income, residency), current eating disorder behaviors (binge eating, extreme dieting, purging), and health-related quality of life (SF-36). Results: Below-median annual household income was associated with increased prevalence rates from 1998 to 2008 in binge eating, extreme dieting, and purging. Male sex was associated with increased prevalence rates in extreme dieting and purging. Age over 45 years was associated with increased prevalence rates in purging. In 2008 versus 1998, binge eating was associated with greater mental health-related quality of life impairment in males but not females; and greater physical health-related quality of life impairment in regional but not metropolitan areas. Extreme dieting was also associated with greater physical health-related quality of life impairment in 2008 versus 1998 in the lower but not the higher socioeconomic sector. Conclusions: Findings suggest the ‘democratization’ of disordered eating, with greatest levels of associated impairment being within marginalized demographic sectors. Implications include the need for broader intervention programs and recruitment of demographically representative samples in eating disorder research.
    Original languageEnglish
    Article number943
    Number of pages9
    JournalBMC Public Health
    Volume14
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2014

    Open Access - Access Right Statement

    © 2014 Mitchison et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.

    Keywords

    • eating disorders
    • community profile

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