The prevalence of frequent binge eating and bulimia in a nonclinical

✍ Scribed by Sample, College ;Katzman, Melanie A. ;Wolchik, Sharlene A. ;Braver, Sanford L.

• Publisher: Wiley (John Wiley & Sons)
• Year: 1984
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 532 KB
• Volume: 3
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0276-3478
• DOI: 10.1002/1098-108x(198421)3:3<53::aid-eat2260030305>3.0.co;2-c

✦ Synopsis

This study examined the prevalence of bulimia and frequent binge eating in female college students. Additionally, sex differences in binge eating and in labeling one's behavior as binge eating were assessed. All students in an introductory psychology course, 485 women and 327 men, were subjects. Of all students, 49% reported binge eating. Significantly more women than men reported binge eating and labeled their behavior as such. While 56% of the women reported binge eating, only 7.2% reported eight or more episodes per month. Approximately 4% of the women sampled fulfilled operationalized DSM-II I criteria for bulimia.

In 1980 the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-Ill) (American Psychiatric Association, 1980) included the eating disorder "bulimia." The diagnostic features include: episodic eating patterns involving rapid consumption of large quantities of food in a discrete period of time, usually less than two hours; awareness that this eating pattern is abnormal; fear of not being able to stop eating voluntarily; and depressed mood and self-deprecating thoughts following the eating binges. Three of the following behaviors are also needed: consumption of highly caloric food; eating in private during a binge: termination of a binge through sleep, social interruption, self-induced vomiting, or abdominal pain; repeated attempts to lose weight by self-induced vomiting, severely restrictive diets, or use of cathartics and/or diuretics; and frequent