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A new study from researchers at Children's Hospital Boston and the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston has found that a program to promote healthful nutrition and exercise among middle school students may greatly reduce the risk of eating disorder symptoms among girls. Until now, many programs have failed to prevent teenage girls from using dangerous weight control methods in pursuit of the thin ideal. Details of the study will be presented at the Academy of Eating Disorders 2002 International Conference on Eating Disorders and Clinical Teaching Day being held the weekend of April 25-28, 2002 at the Boston Park Plaza in Boston, Mass.
From 1995 to 1997, more than one thousand middle school students participated in the Planet Health study. Ten schools were randomly assigned to participate in Planet Health or to be the control schools. At the beginning of the study, approximately 30% of the 505 girls in the study were dieting. At the end of the 21-month study, the non-dieting girls in the schools not receiving the Planet Health program showed an alarming increase in eating disorder symptoms.
Among girls who dieted at the start of the study, Planet Health seemed to offer no protection. About 8% of the dieting girls in both control and Planet Health schools reported they began to vomit or abuse laxatives or diet pills by the end of the study. In contrast, among the girls who did not diet at baseline, only a half percent in Planet Health schools reported these behaviors compared to 6% in control schools.
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