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10 - Eating disorders in boys

from Part III - Abnormal states

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2009

Brett McDermott
By
Brett McDermott
Edited by
Tony Jaffa
Brett McDermott
Affiliation:
University of Queensland
Brett McDermott
Affiliation:
Mater Child and Youth Mental Health Service, South Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Tony Jaffa
Affiliation:
Phoenix Centre, Cambridge
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Summary

Introduction

To the public and many clinicians eating disorders are synonymous with girls and young women. The experienced clinician knows this is not the case. This chapter will discuss eating disorders in boys. In the past this endeavour would have been hampered by a dearth of empirical studies. Fortunately, recent community and population-based studies have included boys in their sampling frame. However, the research literature on treatment and outcome in boys with eating disorders is far more limited, often to the point of no separate analysis of outcomes in the male subset of the sample.

Given that the strength of the current literature is community-based studies of putative modifiable determinants of eating disorders, such as body dissatisfaction, the chapter will begin with this area and then discuss eating disorder psychopathology and the prevalence of eating disorders diagnoses in boys. The chapter will conclude with treatment research available in this group. Past research that applied a developmental perspective to other psychopathology areas suggests gender differences across time should be expected. For example longitudinal research of depressive symptoms finds gender equality before 12 years of age (McGee et al., 1990), followed by elevated rates with earlier onset in adolescent girls (Kashani et al., 1987).

The key determinants in childhood eating disorders considered include psychological constructs such as body dissatisfaction and its influence on dieting and other weight loss strategies, biological factors such as height, weight, body mass index (BMI) and pubertal status, the experience of traumatic events including various forms of abuse and socio-cultural factors including family, peer and media influences.

Keywords

biological factorsBMIbody mass indexboyspsychological factorsrisk factorseating disorderevidence-based treatment approach
Type
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Eating Disorders in Children and Adolescents , pp. 123 - 132
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2006

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  • Eating disorders in boys
    • By Brett McDermott, Mater Child and Youth Mental Health Service, South Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
  • Edited by Tony Jaffa
  • Brett McDermott, University of Queensland
  • Book: Eating Disorders in Children and Adolescents
  • Online publication: 02 December 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511543890.010
Available formats
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Save book to Dropbox

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  • Eating disorders in boys
    • By Brett McDermott, Mater Child and Youth Mental Health Service, South Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
  • Edited by Tony Jaffa
  • Brett McDermott, University of Queensland
  • Book: Eating Disorders in Children and Adolescents
  • Online publication: 02 December 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511543890.010
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Eating disorders in boys
    • By Brett McDermott, Mater Child and Youth Mental Health Service, South Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
  • Edited by Tony Jaffa
  • Brett McDermott, University of Queensland
  • Book: Eating Disorders in Children and Adolescents
  • Online publication: 02 December 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511543890.010
Available formats
×