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my personal edition > eating disorders > news
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DGReview
Adolescent Eating Disorders Predict High Health Risks In Early Adulthood
A DGReview of :"Eating Disorders During Adolescence and the Risk for Physical and Mental Disorders During Early Adulthood"
Archives of General Psychiatry
06/25/2002
By David Ball
Young adults may be at a higher risk of a range of physical and mental health problems as a result of eating disorders in adolescence, say United States researchers.
This association between adolescent eating disorders and subsequent health risks was found in data from a community-based longitudinal investigation.
Physicians from the Departments of Psychiatry, Columbia University and the New York State Psychiatric Institute and The Mount Sinai Medical Center, investigated the data on 717 adolescents and their mothers from two counties in the state of New York.
Mean age of the youths was 13.8 years at the time of the first psychosocial and psychiatric interviews in 1983. Further interviews were conducted with this representative community sample between 1985 to 1986 and 1991 to 1993.
After statistically controlling for age, sex, socio-economic status, co-occurring psychiatric disorders, adolescent health problems, body mass index and concerns about health during adulthood, the subjects were seen to be at risk of a series of health complaints.
A substantially elevated risk was found for anxiety disorders, cardiovascular symptoms, chronic fatigue, chronic pain and depressive disorders.
Adolescents with eating disorders were also limited in their activities because of poor health, infectious diseases, insomnia, neurological symptoms as well as attempting suicide in their early adulthood.
Whether or not an adolescent had an eating disorder, say the researchers, any problem with eating or weight was a predictor of poor health outcomes in adulthood.
They point out that within the past year, psychiatric treatment had been given to only 22 percent of the adolescents with current eating disorders.
Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2002;59:545-552
"Eating Disorders During Adolescence and the Risk for Physical and Mental Disorders During Early Adulthood"
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