Bulimia Risk Factors
In Western, industrialized countries, between 1 and 3 percent of women experience bulimia during their life. The rate of bulimia in men is about one-tenth of that in women.
Bulimia often begins during transitional periods that are often accompanied by increasing peer pressure, dieting and emotional upheaval. (This used to be later adolescence and at the transition to college, but middle school is now becoming a highly stressful time as well with profound triggers!) Bulimia is more common in college students than in adolescents.
Researchers have identified certain factors that seem to increase the risk of developing or triggering bulimia, including:
Dieting and The Drive for Thinness.
- Children who diet who are likely to develop an eating disorder.. Dieting can trigger a binge episode, leading to purging and then more dieting – and consequently a vicious cycle is set in place. In fact, girls who diet frequently are 12 times as likely to binge as girls who don’t diet
- Over one-half of teenage girls and nearly one-third of teenage boys use unhealthy weight control behaviors such as skipping meals, fasting, smoking cigarettes, vomiting, and taking laxatives (Neumark-Sztainer, 2005).
- 42% of 1st-3rd grade girls want to be thinner
- 81% of 10 year olds are afraid of being fat
- 46% of 9-11 year-olds are “sometimes” or “very often” on diets, and 82% of their families are “sometimes” or “very often” on diets
- 35% of “normal dieters” progress to pathological dieting. Of those, 20-25% progress to partial or full- syndrome eating disorder
Pubertal changes.
- Some adolescents have trouble coping with the changes in their bodies during puberty. They also have to deal with increased peer pressure and may be overly sensitive to criticism or even casual comments about their weight or body.
Transitions
- Changes are frequent in the lives of children and adolescents, and whether the changes are happy things (going off to college, landing a new job) or negative things (relationship breakups) these changes can produce emotional distress. One way to cope in a situation in which a person feels out of control, is to turn to something that they can control, such as eating.
Sports, work and artistic activities.
- Athletes, actors and television personalities, dancers, gymnasts, runners, wrestlers and models are at higher risk of eating disorders such as bulimia.
- Coaches and parents may contribute to eating disorders by suggesting that young athletes lose weight.
- Coaches may also inadvertently send messages to their athletes by talking to them in ways that adversely affect their sense of value to the team and as individuals, or that make an athlete feel ashamed and humiliated–triggers to the eating disordered behaviors.
Media and society
- The average American woman is 5’4” tall and weighs 140 pounds. The average American model is 5’11” tall and weighs 117 pounds. Most fashion models are thinner than 98% of American women
- Exposure to images of these very thin models may lead girls and young women to believe that thinness leads to success and popularity.
- Americans spend over $40 billion on dieting and diet-related products each year
- 25% of American men and 45% of American women are on a diet on any given day