Huerta, E., Mallick, J., & Whipple, T. Behavioral and psychological traits of weight conscious teenagers: A comparison of eating disordered patients and high and low-risk groups. Adolescence. San Diego, CA: Libra Publishers.

OVERVIEW

This study tested the differences and similarities between female athletes, weight-conscious girls, and girls who have a definite eating disorder.

Adolescence is a time of experimentation during which teens test out a variety of ritualistic activities designed to give them control over their changing bodies. Dieting is a frequently tested ritual that presents the opportunity for pathological behavior.

The authors of this study note that of the two thirds of teenage girls who eventually diet, one or two percent are eventually diagnosed with either anorexia nervosa or bulimia. The challenge for those working with adolescents is to determine the teenager who is absorbed in a ritualistic phase, and one who is likely to become pathologically addicted to the ritual. Studies have shown that diagnosed anorexics and bulimics represent only a small portion of those who actually have eating disorders.

The purpose of this study was to compare the general psychological characteristics of eating-disordered individuals to the psychological characteristics of members of so-called high-risk athletic groups and to normal adolescent females.

The study indicated that

• Anorexic women are found to be less well adjusted than anorexic-like and normal female adolescents (according to the Weissman Scale).
• Anorexic women scored significantly higher on ineffectiveness, interpersonal trust, and interoceptive awareness than anorexic-like women. (according to the Eating Disorder Inventory)
• Research has also concluded that weight preoccupied women only superficially resemble the eating-disordered although they consistently display greater psychopathology than women who were not weight-preoccupied.
• Anorexics and bulimics have continual confusion about body boundaries and awkwardness about body changes taking place in adolescence; they have poor affective control and great emotional fluctuation. They also feel lonely and isolated.
• Anorexics, more than bulimics, are extremely regressed in their social relationships.
• Athletes, whose behavior may mimic those with eating disorders (i.e., irregular periods, currently on a diet, and excessive exercise), are not psychologically similar to the eating-disordered. On the contrary, athletes are better adjusted on most aspects of the self-system of adolescence than non-athletic high school students.
• Athletes who have a body that is not only within the current cultural norm for beauty but which is also capable of performing athletic feats at a competitive level may contribute to athletes’ high scores on the body and self-image scale.
• Young athletes also receive monetary and emotional support from their families.

IMPLICATIONS

1. Clinicians should focus on the psychological and social self aspects and use assessments of emotional tone and social relationships as global screening criteria.
2. Families of diagnosed anorexics will often report in hindsight that two obvious changes in the child are emotional lability and withdrawal from social relationships. Therefore those who, on the surface value of their menstrual and dieting patterns, may appear to be at high risk of developing eating disorders are not likely to be at risk unless their emotional status and social functioning have deteriorated to a low level.