Adolescents and eating disorders: attention to teasing about weight!

Adolescents who suffer ridicule on their weight by trying the following lose weight through various means which lead to unhealthy eating disorders, suggests a study published in "Pediatrics" magazine.

Jess Haines, of the University of Minnesota and colleagues conducted a study of 2,516 adolescents treated between 1998 and 2004 to assess whether the criticisms of weight predict the development of eating disorders such as binge eating , control weight by vomiting, taking diet pills, laxatives or repeated practice plans.

From the study, about 25% of participants reported undergoing critical remarks or jokes about their weight at least several times per year.

Among the girls who have undergone these mockeries, 18% reported practicing five years after frequent regimes against 11% for the other girls of the study.

However, after adjusting the results, the relationship between teasing and eating disorders has been confirmed only for boys and not girls. The authors hypothesize that girls face many other factors such as images of "supermodel" in the media that affect the relationship with their bodiesBoys who suffered critical of their weight are, five years later, into increased risk of developing eating disorders, such as excessive food intake, compared to their peers (4.1% versus 1.4%) and that controls the unhealthy weight (27.5% versus 19.3%).

"The public must be informed of the consequences caused by the ridicule on weight, even though they may appear to be simple initially harmless jokes," say the authors of the study.