Use of Diet Pills and Other Dieting Aids in a College Population with High Weight and Shape Concerns

This research I found from International Journal of Eating Disorder studied whether the college women with diet aids use are at risk of eating disorder and the demographic and psychosocial characteristics associated with their diet aids use. The research was conducted by 484 college women with age below 30 years old from 6 different universities in San Francisco area and San Diego. They were accessed with whether they had used diet pill, far blocker, diuretic, laxative, and other diet aid over the past 12 months. They use WCS, a five-item questionnaire that assess through weight and shape, fear of gaining weight, dieting frequency, importance of weight, and feelings of fatness as one of the tools to find the relationship between diet aid use and weight and shape concerns. With score range from 0 to 100, the higher the score the greater weight and shape concerns.

The result of this study shows that 32% of the college women from both cities admit using more than one dietary aid to help them lose weight and stay in shape in the past 12 months. The college women in San Diego reported using diet aids was twice as much as college women in San Francisco area with 44% in respect of 22%. Diet pills are the most popular one among all the diet aids used by college women. The participants with diet aids use scored high on WCS. The study reveals that 79% women from San Diego region score high on WCS used diet aids. It also appears that the longer you stay in school the higher rate of the diet pill use among women. With 46% diet pill use among sophomores or above compares to 14% rate among freshmen.

In the conclusion, the result shows that there is a significant number of college women in both areas at risk for eating disorders use diet aids. Among all different types of diet aids, diet pills are the most common one used. The data collected demonstrate that college women in these two regions with higher rate of diet aids use are at risk of developing eating disorder. It is recommended that the health care authority should show concern and inquiries on young women’s dietary aids use because more and more women are concerned with their weight and shape.

Reference

Christine I. Celio, Kristine H. Luce, Susan W. Bryson, Andrew J. Winzelberg, Barby Cunning, Roxanne Rockwell, Angela A. Celio Doyle, Denise E. Wilfley, C. Barr Taylor. (2005, May 31). Use of Diet Pills and Other Dieting Aids in a College Population with High Weight and Shape Concerns. International Journal of Eating Disoders 39:6 492-497 2006-DOI 10.1002/eat Retrieved Mar 20, 2012 From http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.proxy.lib.sfu.ca/doi/10.1002/eat.20254/pdf