The Spectrum of Disordered Eating Attitudes Among Female University Students: A Cross-Sectional Study

Tarfa Albrahim,Sara Abdullah Aldekhayyil,Manal Khalid Alaskar,Jewaher Turki Saleh Alfadhliah,Anwar Abdullah Alrubaish,Mona Abdulla Alatawi

doi:10.12944/crnfsj.7.3.10

Abstract

To explore the prevalence of disordered eating attitudes among the students of the Princess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University (PNU), in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 396 (18-24 years) undergraduate students from the PNU were requested to participate, after acquiring their verbal consent. The two-part questionnaire included the demographic and anthropometric data like age, weight and height in the first part, while the assessment of the disordered eating attitudes according to the tools listed in the Eating Attitude Test 26 (EAT-26) were included in the second part. A total score of 20 or more on questions 1-26 was classified as being at risk of eating disorders. The study showed 145 students (36.8%) in all, fell under the class of high level of concern for an eating disorder, registering a score of 20 or higher on the EAT-26. With respect to the EAT score among the BMI categories marked differences were evident on the EAT items, feeling extremely guilty after eating, occupied with a desire to be thinner, burning up calories during exercise, preoccupied with the thought of having fat on my body, eating diet food, feeling uncomfortable after eating sweets and engaging in dieting behavior, having gone on eating binges where I feel I may not be able to stop and feeling that others would prefer if I ate more food and other people think I am too thin. Besides, in comparison to students with normal weight, students who were underweight, overweight, and obese exhibited considerable disparities on the total EAT score. More than one third (36.6%) of females at PNU university, Saudi Arabia had disordered eating attitudes. The present study revealed that female students require awareness regarding proper nutrition.

Highlights

Eating disorders (ED) rank high among the most prevalent psychiatric problems, adolescent girls are experiencing today, where they develop incorrect attitudes to their body weight and shape, as well as entertain distorted perceptions of body shape.[1,2,3] The core characteristics of EDs include feeding and eating disturbances and a distorted understanding of body image, causing extreme eating and/or purging behaviors that can result in conditions of severe underweight or in some instances overweight.[4]
This study revealed that 58.6% of the participants came under the normal category (BMI 18.5-25), while 10.7% were included in the underweight category, and 20.8% of the participants were in the overweight class (BMI >25-29.9) leaving 9.9% in the obese category (BMI ≥ 30)
For the oral control subscale items, avoid eating when hungry, the findings revealed higher means of 3.00 ± 0.70 followed by taking longer than others to eat meals 1.09 ± 0.69

Summary

Introduction

Eating disorders (ED) rank high among the most prevalent psychiatric problems, adolescent girls are experiencing today, where they develop incorrect attitudes to their body weight and shape, as well as entertain distorted perceptions of body shape.[1,2,3] The core characteristics of EDs include feeding and eating disturbances and a distorted understanding of body image, causing extreme eating and/or purging behaviors that can result in conditions of severe underweight or in some instances overweight.[4]. The EDs include a spectrum of conditions like anorexia nervosa (AN), bulimia nervosa (BN) and binge eating disorder (BED), regarded as the third most common chronic health condition affecting adolescent females.[10] From an epidemiological study it was obvious that AN and BN together rank as the 12th leading cause of disability adjusted life years (DALYs) in females aged 15–19 years in high-income countries.[11] It has been found that eating disorders affect every single body organ. The eating disorders cause hypertension, slow pulse rate, starvationinduced death, cardiac arrest, and sometimes even suicide.[17]

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Conclusion