SPECIAL ARTICLE
Partial Eating Disorders in a Community Sample of Female Adolescents

https://doi.org/10.1097/00004583-199708000-00019Get rights and content

ABSTRACT

Objectives

To evaluate the validity of two definitions of partial eating disorders, the Eating Attitudes Test (EAT) and a combination of the EAT and relevant criteria of the DSM-III-R, and to examine their association with factors related to anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa.

Method

Questionnaires on eating behaviors, depression, obsessionality, and impulsivity were distributed to 534 female high school students. Demographic, psychosocial, and physical parameters and the subjects' height and weight were also recorded.

Results

EAT scores revealed maladaptive behaviors in 18% of the subjects; the combination of the EAT and DSM-III-R criteria identified 20.8% of the subjects as having partial anorexia nervosa and 11.3% as having partial bulimia nervosa. Both definitions were significantly associated with risk factors for clinical eating disorders: high weight, weight fluctuations, dieting, menstrual disturbances, high level of depression and obsessionality, and preoccupation with eating in the family. Partial bulimics fared worse on most of these parameters. Partial anorectics were not more psychologically distressed than normal subjects.

Conclusions

The validity of both definitions of partial eating disorders is supported by their similar and significant associations with known risk factors for the development of the clinical syndromes. Partial bulimics are similar to patients with bulimia nervosa in the level of many eating-related disturbances and in depression, obsessionality, and impulsivity. Partial anorectics, like anorectic patients in clinical settings, tend to minimize their problems. The relevance of partial eating disorders to the later development of the full-blown clinical entity is still not established. J. Am. Acad. Child Adolesc. Psychiatry, 1997, 36(8):1116–1123.

REFERENCES (44)

  • H Bruch

    Eating Disorders: Obesity, Anorexia Nervosa and the Person Within

    (1973)
  • EJ Button et al.

    Subclinical anorexia nervosa

    Psychosom Med

    (1981)
  • Central Israeli Bureau of Statistics

    Statistical Abstracts of Israel

    (1993)
  • P Chandrana et al.

    Eating attitudes as related to demographic and personality characteristics: a high school survey

    Can J Psychiatry

    (1988)
  • K Chernin

    The Hungry Self: Women, Eating and Identity

    (1985)
  • AH Crisp

    Anorexia Nervosa: Let Me Be

    (1980)
  • M Da Costa et al.

    Classification of anorexia nervosa: questions of subtypes

    Int J Eating Disord

    (1992)
  • IF Dancyger et al.

    The relationship of partial syndrome eating disorders to anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa

    Psychol Med

    (1995)
  • E Davies et al.

    The dieting and body shape concerns of adolescent females

    J Child Psychol Psychiatry

    (1986)
  • A Drewnowski et al.

    Eating pathology and DSM-III-R bulimia nervosa: a continuum of behavior

    Am J Psychiatry

    (1994)
  • CG Fairburn et al.

    Binge eating: definition and classification

  • H Fries

    Secondary amenorrhoea, self-induced weight reduction and anorexia nervosa

    Acta Psychiatr Scand Suppl

    (1974)
  • Cited by (75)

    • Dieting and disordered eating behaviors from adolescence to young adulthood: Findings from a 10-year longitudinal study

      2011, Journal of the American Dietetic Association
      Citation Excerpt :

      For this reason, analyses only included individuals who were present at both EAT-I and EAT-III assessments, and the population was weighted by nonresponse propensity so that the statistical results can be considered more representative of the original school-based sample. The ineffectiveness of dieting for weight gain prevention during adolescence (4-8), the harmful consequences associated with disordered eating behaviors (19,34-37), and the high prevalence of these behaviors during adolescence (21,38-40) have been shown in previous studies. This study adds to this concerning body of literature by demonstrating that the high prevalence of these behaviors continues from adolescence through young adulthood.

    • Subclinical eating disorders and their comorbidity with mood and anxiety disorders in adolescent girls

      2011, Psychiatry Research
      Citation Excerpt :

      sED may be a prodromal phase of an ED. Our results support the view proposed by Stein et al. (1997) that there is a continuous gradient between sED and clinical ED. This also supports the genetic associations between depressive, early overanxious, separation anxiety, and ED symptoms, suggested by Silberg and Bulik (2005).

    • The influence of a primary prevention program on eating-related attitudes of Israeli female middle-school students

      2009, Journal of Adolescence
      Citation Excerpt :

      Most likely, these figures represent an underestimation of the actual incidence due to incomplete data accrual, due to the inclusion of only clinical cases in the analysis. Between 60% and 80% of Israeli female adolescents are dissatisfied with weight and shape, and have dieted at least once in their life (Harel, Ellenbogen-Frankovits, Molcho, Abu-Ashas, & Habib, 2002; Harel, Kani, & Rahav, 1997; Neumark-Sztainer, Palti, & Butler, 1995a), around 20% show disturbed eating-related preoccupations and behaviors (Greenberg, Cwikel, & Mirsky, 2007; Latzer & Tzischinsky, 2003, 2005; Maor, Sayag, Dahan, & Hermoni, 2006), and the rates of subsyndromal EDs in Israeli female adolescents (Stein, Bronstein, & Weizman, 2003; Stein et al., 1997) are in the range reported for most other Western industrialized countries (Shisslak, Crayo, & Estes, 1995). Furthermore, Israel participated in the World Health Organization, Health Behavior in School-Aged Children study conducted in 28 industrialized countries in 1994 (Harel et al., 1997), and again in 44 countries in 1998 (Harel et al., 2002).

    View all citing articles on Scopus
    View full text