The spectrum of eating disorders: prevalence in an area of Northeast Italy

Abstract

This study aims at exploring the prevalence of eating disorders in a sample of adolescents living in a community in Northeast Italy. It takes into account age and gender differences in a mixed male–female sample of 1000 school-aged adolescents corresponding to 10% of the young population aged 15–19 years of the district. The study was based on self-reported questionnaires, including the Eating Attitudes Test (EAT), the Bulimic Investigatory Test of Edinburgh (BITE), and the Body Attitudes Test (BAT). The cases at risk were identified on the basis of the suggested validated cutoff for a clinically relevant syndrome. Females scored higher than males at all ages, body mass index levels, and socio-economic status levels. We found 100 females (15.8%) and 8 males (2.8%) scoring higher than the suggested cutoff for caseness on the EAT (cutoff=30); 26 females (4.1%) and 1 male (0.3%) scoring higher than the suggested cutoff for caseness on the BITE (cutoff=20); 287 females (45.5%) and 24 males (8.6%) scoring higher than the suggested cutoff for caseness on the BAT (cutoff=36). We did not find any gradient between age and socioeconomic status and the scores on the eating disorder inventories. BAT scores predicted with sharp precision the presence of an abnormal psychometric pattern on the EAT and the BITE. The prevalence of psychometric patterns that indicate an eating disorder seems in our adolescent sample higher than those reported in previous similar studies carried out in the North of Italy. The use of self-report inventories is a limitation in drawing definitive conclusions on the rates of eating disorder in this area; however, bodily dissatisfaction seems to be psychologically linked to abnormal eating patterns.