According to the Polaris Teen Center, roughly 4% of teenagers struggle with eating disorders. However, this percentage doesn’t accurately explain the negative relationships teenagers often form with food. Our organization, Medical Matriarchs, decided to do research spanning from different high schools to show that although 4% of teenagers have an eating disorder, there is a much larger percentage of teenagers with unhealthy habits they’ve formed with food. We decided to make an anonymous survey to send out to teenagers in different high schools. The survey consisted of 18 multiple choice questions and 4 free-response questions. The first questions on the survey were designed to see what our participants were like, and the rest asked about eating habits and relationships with food. Our research, with 125 responses, showed that despite the majority of teenagers being binge eating disorder-free, the majority of teenagers have felt self-conscious about their body image and made unhealthy food-related decisions. 

The first part of our survey was designed to determine the geographical location, age, and gender of our participants. Our questions included mostly free responses to gauge this. We asked “What school do you attend?”, “What state do you live in?”, “What grade are you in?”, and “What gender do you identify as?”. We had students from 25 different schools answer our survey, mostly consisting of local Arizona schools. Overall, 89.08% of our participants live in Arizona. 3.64% live in California and 2.73% of our participants answered from schools in England. Additionally, Florida, Georgia, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Texas each have 0.91% of our participants. Our survey was mostly targeted towards high school students but there was a slight variation in the grade level of our participants. Our participants are 45.6% highschool juniors, 24% seniors, 10.4% sophomores, 8% freshmen, 8% college students, and 4% 8th graders. Our survey was mostly successful in that it was mainly targeted towards high school students with some exceptions. Unfortunately, we had a slight bias with our participants when it came to gender identification. 60% of our participants identified as female, meaning our data depended mostly on students with this gender identity. However, 25.6% of survey responses were from males and 11.2% from students identifying as non-binary or genderfluid. 3.2% of our participants preferred not to report their gender. We felt there was a large diversity, both geographical and in terms of age, in the responses for the survey. Even if the data can’t be generalized to the population of high school students, it gives insight previously not established into the eating behaviors of teenagers and adolescents. 

We started by asking questions about more common, socially- acceptable unhealthy eating behaviors. Our first question was asking about how often they ate breakfast. The majority, 24.8% only ate breakfast “some of the time”. We found 22.4% ate “rarely”, 22.4% “most of the time”, 17.6% “all of the time”, and 12.8%” never”. Our next question asked about “purposely skipping meals”. 85.6% purposely skip meals. However, we realized that there could be legitimate reasons for skipping, such as lack of hunger or religious purposes, so we asked a follow-up question asking why. 54.1% of the people who skipped meals said that it was to avoid eating calories or stemmed from their eating disorder. The next survey question asked, “Do you ever track your calorie intake?”. Although tracking calories isn’t always an unhealthy behavior, it is common in people obsessing over their weight and body image. 44.4% of our participants track their calorie intake. Our next question was “Do you ever chew gum or drink large amounts of water to avoid your hunger?”. This is a very common unhealthy behavior and many teenagers substitute sugar-free gum for necessary meals. 70.4% of our responses said that they chew gum or drink large amounts of water to avoid feeling hunger. Another habit that can be unhealthy is checking your weight on a scale often. Although sometimes this can be medically necessary or for other purposes, it is a sign of unhealthy body obsession. 52% of the participants commonly check their weight on a scale. Our last question about generally unhealthy habits that are seen as socially acceptable had to do with trying new diets and ways to lose weight. Often, these online diets are unhealthy and can cause you harm or deprive you of necessary nutrients and food. 26.4% have often tried to use fad diets and new ways to lose weight. 

Before we delved into diagnosable eating disorder behaviors, we asked our participants about their perceived body image and how other people have tried to influence their feelings. 79.2% of our participants often compare themselves to people online. Social media has become a large factor in influencing the way people perceive themselves, often comparing appearances or body image to celebrities and/or friends. Additionally, 57.6% of people have been outwardly shamed or judged based on their appearance. A leading cause of these high numbers is parents and peers who often make unnecessary comments about the appearance of others. We decided to ask more in-depth questions after to see how common eating disorder behaviors are. Firstly, we asked about the act of purging. Purging is a common part of many eating disorders including bulimia nerviosa, in which someone throws up their meals in order to avoid absorbing calories. 20.8% of people have purged their food. However, we took into account that it may not be that common of an occurrence. However, 50% of those who answered yes do it more than twice a month. 10.7% of the people who answered yes purge their food almost every day. The second question we asked in relation to diagnosable eating disorders was about binging. Binging is the act of continuously eating even after you feel sick. It’s an unhealthy behavior that can damage your esophagus and stomach. 41.6% answered yes to binging. However, this is still a semi- common occurrence for many people but we found that 54.7% of people do this more than twice a month, with 11.3% doing it often or every day. Our last question in relation to diagnosable eating disorders was about the use of laxatives and diet pills. Diet pills vary greatly but according to Future Recovery HealthCare, diet pills can cause increased blood pressure, kidney damage, liver damage, rectal bleeding, and many other negative side effects. We found that 10.6% of our participants have used laxatives or diet pills in an attempt to lose weight. 

Our data has shown that the large majority of teenagers take unhealthy measures to control their weight and body image. We asked our participants directly if they had an eating disorder and we found the results to show that although only a “small percentage” of teenagers have an eating disorder, almost the majority of teenagers have unhealthy relationships with their body and with food. 12.1% of our participants replied that they have an eating disorder. We know there is likely a bias with our results, possibly because teenagers with eating disorders are more likely to take interest in our survey and our research, but this isn’t the most shocking value to come out of our research. 37.9% of people replied with “I’m not sure” to the question asking them if they had an eating disorder. This means that only 50% of people have a healthy relationship with food and their body. Many people are not sure if they have an eating disorder and likely choose to minimize their negative feelings and emotions. We left a free response question asking those who have an eating disorder what they think the cause of it is. We had many responses and although people may have different reasons, we determined that the most common included societal standards being internalized, body shaming comments, or past traumatic experiences. Many eating disorders stem from other problems such as PTSD and internalized feelings of inadequacy. Many of the body shaming comments came from family, most commonly mothers. We believe the reason for this is that many mothers choose to take out their own insecurities on their children, and they feel the need to hold their children to unrealistically high standards. Unfortunately, only 5% of those who answered our survey have received eating disorder treatment. Although this was unfortunately due mostly to lack of access or unwilling parents, many teenagers feel that their eating disorder is not “bad enough” to need treatment. Eating disorders are extremely competitive and many may feel that their pain and symptoms aren’t negative enough to need help. Many teenagers minimize their feelings and negative actions, but eating disorders are extremely serious and it’s extremely important for teenagers to reach out for help. 

Works Cited: 

[Polaris Teen Center, , Polaris Teen Center: Premier Adolescent Treatment Center in Los Angeles, "Teen Eating Disorders: Statistics and How to Help - Polaris Teen Center," 06/12/18, polaristeen.com/articles/10-statistics-of-teenage-eating-disorders/]

[Futures Recovery Heathcare, , Futures Recovery, "Harmful Effects of Diet Pills and Supplements - Futures Recovery Healthcare," 10/22/18, futuresrecoveryhealthcare.com/blog/harmful-effects-diet-pills-supplements/]

Resources: 

nationaleatingdisorders.org/help-support/contact-helpline

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