Diet In Young Women Research Articles

The Diet of Girls and Young Women at the Beginning of the Century

Recent research has shown that retarded growth during fetal life and infancy is linked to the development of cardiovascular disease (coronary heart disease and stroke) in adult life. Maternal nutrition has an important effect on early growth and the diets of young women may therefore influence cardiovascular disease in the next generation. Samples of women aged 80 years and over were interviewed in six areas of England and Wales with different cardiovascular death rates. The women, 281 in total, were asked about their diets when they were aged 10 to 15 years. Those who grew up in areas which now have low cardiovascular mortality tended to eat four meals a day rather than three, to live in households which had gardens, kept hens or livestock, and to go into domestic service, where diets were generally good. Those who grew up in areas which now have high cardiovascular mortality tended to eat less red meat, to live in houses without gardens, to enter industrial occupations and have higher fertility rates.

Eating behaviours among young women.

Disordered eating and weight-control behaviour is becoming increasingly common among adolescent girls. We studied four groups of young women aged between 15 and 27 years (106 school and university students, 50 ballet school students, 22 patients suffering from anorexia nervosa and 44 patients with bulimia). Our results suggest that most young women diet at some time and lose more than three kg in weight; that they may experience episodes of binge eating and "picking" behaviour; and that they wish to be thinner irrespective of their current body weight. Twenty per cent of young women may fulfil the criteria for an eating disorder (bulimia or anorexia nervosa) at some stage, however briefly, and about 7% abuse laxatives or diuretics in order to achieve a fashionably slim figure. We suggest that most young women may pass through a phase of what is currently called disordered eating, and that this is part of normal development and may not necessarily require treatment. The incidence of disordered eating is greater in those young women who are under pressure to maintain a low body weight.