Eating attitudes and weight concerns in female low birth weight adolescents.
OBJECTIVE
Studies of clinically referred patients have implicated low birth weight (LBW) as a possible risk factor for eating disorders. This study examines eating attitudes and weight concerns in nonreferred LBW female adolescents.


METHODS
274 LBW girls (mean age 15.9) belonging to a prospective regional LBW birth cohort completed the Eating Attitudes Test (EAT-26) and items from the Eating Symptoms Inventory on weight perception and weight dissatisfaction.


RESULTS
Only 2.3% scored above threshold for eating disorder risk on the EAT-26. A total of 25% perceived themselves as overweight and 18.7% perceived themselves as underweight, while 63.4% desired to lose and 17.7% desired to gain weight. Girls who perceived themselves as overweight or desired to lose weight had higher mean EAT scores than those who did not.


CONCLUSIONS
Nonreferred adolescent girls born at LBW are not, as a whole, at risk for abnormal eating attitudes and negative perceptions of their weight.
Blond
Anna I
AI
Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Columbia University and New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York, NY 10032, USA.
Feldman
Judith F
JF
Lorenz
John M
JM
Whitaker
Agnes H
AH
D000293:Adolescent; D001294:Attitude to Health; D001835:Body Weight; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D007230:Infant, Low Birth Weight; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D011446:Prospective Studies; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires