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Binge Eating and Weight Concerns among Young Adults

Results from the Zurich Cohort Study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Margarete Vollrath ,
Regula Koch  and
Jules Angst
Margarete Vollrath*
Affiliation:
Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, PO Box 139, CH-8028 Zurich, Switzerland
Regula Koch
Affiliation:
Psychiatric Hospital Herisau, CH-9100 Herisau AR, Switzerland
Jules Angst
Affiliation:
Psychiatric University Hospital Zurich, Research Department, PO Box 68, CH-8029 Zurich, Switzerland
*
∗Correspondence
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Abstract

In the longitudinal cohort study of young adults from the Canton of Zurich in Switzerland, two groups of eating problems were defined: binge eating and weight concerns. Subjects with these conditions were interviewed at the ages of 27–28 and 29–30 years. The binge eaters, mostly women, differed both from subjects with weight concerns and from controls. They had more severe eating problems and more anxiety and depression. Follow-up as well as retrospective data suggest that eating problems are persistent for the binge eaters, and, to a lesser extent, also for subjects with weight concerns. Even so, professional treatment is rarely sought by subjects with eating problems. These findings encourage long-term studies on eating problems in community samples.

Type
Papers
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 160 , Issue 4 , April 1992 , pp. 498 - 503
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1992 

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