EATING DISORDER STATISTICS

EATING DISORDER STATISTICS

· *Statistics show that 1 in 5 women suffer from an eating disorder.

*70 million individuals are affected by eating disorders worldwide, with 24 million being
American.

*10 to 15 percent are male.

*90 percent of women with eating disorders are between the ages of 12 and 25.

*Currently approximately 11 percent of high school students have been diagnosed with an eating disorder.

*15 percent of young women in the US who are not diagnosed with an eating disorder exhibit substantially disordered eating behavior and attitude.

*4 percent of college-aged women have bulimia.

*Approximately 50 percent of anorexics will develop bulimia or bulimic behaviors.

* 31 percent of teenage girls in the US and 28 percent of teenage boys in the US are overweight.

*15 percent of US teenage girls and almost 14 percent of US teenage boys are obese.

*It is estimated that 1 percent of women in the US have binge eating disorder.

*Approximately 60 percent of those with an eating disorder that seek treatment will recover.

*Without treatment up to 20 percent of those with serious eating disorders will die.

*At least 50,000 individuals will die as the result of an eating disorder.

PREVALANCE OF EATING DISORDERS IN WESTERN COUNTRIES

There are some reports on the prevalence of anorexia nervosa. In the United States, Lucas and colleagues reported a longitudinal general population-based survey from 1935-1989. Their data revealed that the most vulnerable group for anorexia nervosa comprised girls and young women aged 15 to 24 years. A continual rise in incidence was observed throughout the 55 years of this study. Two studies of female students to determine the prevalence of anorexia nervosa suggest that the prevalence is higher in Norway (2.6%) Italy (1.3%).A population-based study of anorexia nervosa in the United Kingdomfound that the prevalence of anorexia nervosa among females aged 15 to 19 years old was 0.1%. The prevalence rate of anorexia nervosa thus seems to be lower in the general population than among students. A study of psychiatric female outpatients in Norway reported a prevalence of anorexia nervosa of 5.7%.

It is interesting that Hungary reported fewer sufferers than other Western countries. Female subjects are more often affected than male subjects for both anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa.

Population-based and clinic-based estimates of anorexia nervosa in Western countries ranged from 0.1% to 5.7% n female subjects, and that of bulimia nervosa ranged from 0% to 2.1% in male subjects and from 0.3% to 7.3% in female subjects.

PREVALANCE OF EATING DISORDERS IN NON WESTERN COUNTRIES

Buhrich reported that 0.05% of the psychiatric patient sample in Malaysia were diagnosed with anorexia nervosa, and this prevalence rate had not increased for 15 years. Lee reported in 1989 that anorexia sufferers were very few in Hong Kong compared with Western countries. In Japan, Kuboki^[22] conducted a survey among the general and female patient population of 732 hospitals in 1988. He found that the female patient population had about 1.5 times more anorexia sufferers than the general population, although the prevalence rate was still only 0.0063%. Kuboki repeated the same survey in 1992. The prevalence of anorexia nervosa was now higher than the previous data. Among the general population, the rate had increased from 0.0036% to 0.0045%. Among the female patient population, the rate had increased from 0.0063% to 0.0097%; the proportion of anorexia nervosa sufferers among the female patient population was now twice that in the general population. Nakamura's survey suggested that the rate of anorexia sufferers was 0.0048% among 130 hospitals and 1326 clinics in Japan. This figure is similar to the result derived from Kuboki's survey. Results from a questionnaire-based survey recently conducted in Iran indicate that the prevalence of anorexia nervosa is 0.9% among school girls. This figure was not obtained by clinical diagnosis, however; and this is the highest rate reported among non-Western countries.

Lee reported that 0.46 % of female college students had bulimia nervosa in Hong Kong in 1991, a lower rate than that found by Kiriike (2.9%) in Japan. Lee also reported that almost all the female students wanted to be slimmer, although they did not try to lose weight. Apart from Asian countries, there are some reports in Islamic countries of bulimia nervosa. Nasser in Cairo reported that the estimated prevalence of bulimia nervosa found by administering questionnaires on disordered eating was 1.2% among the school girls; using the same type of survey as the one used in Cairo, investigators estimated that 3.2% of Iranian school girls suffer from bulimia nervosa. Again, one should note that these figures were not obtained by clinical diagnosis and that the Iranian rate is the highest among non-Western countries.

Population-based and patient-based estimates of anorexia nervosa in non–Western countries thus ranged from 0.002% to 0.9% and that of bulimia nervosa ranged from 0.46% to 3.2%.

There were no population-based prevalence surveys in other non-Western countries. In Singapore in 1982, Ong and colleagues published a case report on 7 Chinese females with anorexia nervosa. Ong suggested that there was a low incidence of this disorder in Singapore. Following Ong's report, Ung reported in 1997 that 50 anorexia nervosa sufferers were identified, and he suggested there was an increase in the incidence of this disorder.