According to a new study released recently, there is even more information leading to a possible link between eating disorders and the fact that they may just be contagious. At the heart of these results are cluster groups of young girls that exhibit the same eating disorder behaviors including binging and the use of diet pills.
Earlier research, completed in the 1908's, was the first sign for researchers that eating disorders could possibly be contagious. Female college students were studied and showed signs of what doctors called “social contagion.” The behavior of these females was very similar to the recent study group.
In the more recent study, the girls were compared based upon residential location. Pairs of girls living within the same county were more apt to share the same eating disorder symptoms with a rate of between 4 and 10 percent over girls from separate counties.
As the counties were analyzed, clusters of eating disorder associated actions were clearly found. Fasting, dieting, exercising and the use of diet pills were all found to be more common when the young girls lived within the same county. The same was found for all eating disorder related actions and actions involved with weight loss and weight control. The only symptom not found in the cluster of symptoms was purging, or vomiting. It is thought that the secret nature of these symptoms may be to blame for the lack of cluster activity.
At the heart of the study was the determination of whether eating disorder symptoms clustered by geographical region and not the reasons why they clustered. Researchers, however, have ventured to hypothesize that these results could be due to peer pressure, modeling of student behaviors and the sharing of intimate details among friends.
