EATING DISORDERS – THE DESPERATE DEVOUR (OR) DEPRIVATION

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Author Details : Balaji Arumugam, Suveka. V, Saranya Nagalingam, Suganya. A.

Volume : 1, Issue : 1, Year : 2015

Article Page : 34-42

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Abstract

Background: Psychological illness characterised by aberrant eating habits either by paltry or exorbitant intake to the detriment of an individual’s physical and mental health is called as “EATING DISORDER”. Though some evince shows that eating disorders have genetic vulnerability, they are predominantly influenced by psychological and socio – cultural impacts. We anticipate that integration of several factors may easily lead to Eating disorders and inflate its prevalence equivalent to any other illness.

Materials and Methods: This study was performed as a cross sectional study during December 2014 and February 2015 with the objectives of assessing the prevalence of the Eating Disorder among adolescent population. Schools and colleges were randomly selected in Chennai and the institutional authorities were approached for getting the assent. On a specific day, data collection was done usingthe preformed predetermined questionnaire by direct interview method. The data was entered in MS excel sheet and analysis was done using SPSS software version 3.5, 2008.

Result: Totally 1026 partakers were interrogated of which 80.1% were females. Mean age of the study population was 16.75 years. Among the total study participants 7.6% (78) were vegetarians. 88.6% belonged to nuclear family and 44.1% of them belonged to class I socio-economic status.About 37.1% (381) of people were suffering from eating disorder. Eating Disorder was significantly associated with the age group of 16 – 19 years (p=0.042), female gender (p=0.00), professionals (p=0.000), socio-economic class I (p=0.000), vegetarian (p=0.00), Family history of eating disorder (p=0.005).

Conclusion: The prevalence of Eating disorder among Adolescent population in our study was moderately high and hence interventions should be made to create cognizance among the general population about the risk factors and consequences in consuming large amount of fast foods.

Keywords: Eating Disorder, Deprivation, Abnormal eating patterns

How to cite : Arumugam B, Suveka. V, Nagalingam S, Suganya. A., EATING DISORDERS – THE DESPERATE DEVOUR (OR) DEPRIVATION. J Prev Med Holist Health 2015;1(1):34-42

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