Describes anorexia and bulimia, two eating disorders that affect adolescent females more frequently than males. Discusses causes, effects, and treatments of these two eating disorders. Describes what teachers can do to identify students with these disorders and help those who suffer from them. (PKP)

Used interview data from a community study to test whether early menarche partially accounts for increased depression, eating pathology, substance abuse, and comorbid psychopathology among adolescent girls. Found that menarche prior to 11.6 years related to elevated depression and substance abuse. Findings support assertion that early menarche is…

Objective: To examine sexual orientation group differences in eating disorder symptoms in adolescent girls and boys. Method: Cross-sectional associations were examined using multivariate regression techniques using data gathered in 1999 from 10,583 adolescents in the Growing Up Today Study, a cohort of children of women participating in the…

The Body Logic Program for Adolescents was developed as a two-stage intervention to prevent the development of eating disorder symptoms. Preliminary results indicate that this program shows promise as an effective prevention effort. The current article provides a detailed description of the protocol for implementing Body Logic Part I, a…

To elucidate the processes that contribute to the comorbidity between bulimic pathology, depression, and substance abuse, the authors tested the temporal relations between these disturbances with prospective data from adolescent girls (N = 496). Multivariate analyses indicated that depressive symptoms predicted onset of bulimic pathology but not…

This paper discusses the role of automatic negative reinforcement in the maintenance of clinical problems. Following a brief introduction to the functional conceptualization of clinical problems and discussion of four classes of reinforcement maintaining clinical problems, the paper suggests that automatic negative reinforcement is an understudied…

The first-line treatment for bulimia nervosa (BN), cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), uses food-based self-monitoring. Six young women presenting with BN or significant purging behavior were treated with a modification, Appetite-Focused CBT (CBT-AF), in which self-monitoring is based on appetite cues and food monitoring is proscribed. This change…

Body image dissatisfaction and eating disturbances are prevalent among youths and are beginning at an increasingly younger age. The glorification of the ideal, thin body type surrounds youths, in direct contrast to the increasing rates of overweight and obesity among the same population. The messages that children and adolescents are receiving are…

In this trial, adolescent girls with body dissatisfaction (N = 481, M age = 17 years) were randomized to an eating disorder prevention program involving dissonance-inducing activities that reduce thin-ideal internalization, a prevention program promoting healthy weight management, an expressive writing control condition, or an assessment-only…

Intuitive eating is characterized by eating based on physiological hunger and satiety cues rather than situational and emotional cues and is associated with psychological well-being. This study reports on the development and initial psychometric evaluation of the Intuitive Eating Scale (IES) with data collected in 4 studies from 1,260 college…

In the present study, the authors tested the cross-ethnic validity of several variables and paths from a model of disordered eating proposed by T. L. Tylka and L. M. Subich (2004) with 200 Asian American college women. Path analysis indicated that this model provided an excellent fit to the data after a path from internalization of the thin ideal…

The studies reported here explored whether therapeutic groups for women who eat compulsively can demonstrate weight loss as a primary result as well as the improvements in emotional functioning reported by other investigators. In both studies questionnaire data showed little change in self-esteem or attitudes as measured by the Rosenberg…

The authors examined rapid response among 108 patients with binge eating disorder (BED) who were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 16-week treatments: fluoxetine, placebo, cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) plus fluoxetine, or CBT plus placebo. Rapid response, defined as 65% or greater reduction in binge eating by the 4th treatment week, was determined…

Objective: To compare the dietary habits and nutritional status of mentally retarded (MR) and normal (NG) subjects and to examine the relationship between the dietary habits and nutritional status and the level of mental retardation in the MR group. Method: A case control design was utilized: 117 MR (random sampling) and 100 NG (quota sampling)…

The frequency, course, and inter-relationships of atypical eating, sleeping, self-injurious behavior, aggression and temper tantrums in children with autism and children with a history of language impairment (HLI), was investigated using a parent interview that was created to examine these problem behaviors. The relationships between these…