EATING ATTITUDES AND BEHAVIORS IN A SWISS STUDENT SAMPLE - SOME PRELIMINARY-RESULTS

This paper reports the results of a pilot study of eating attitudes an d behaviours of 150 female and male students, 15-20 years of age. Scre ening with the EAT-26 revealed 6.4 per cent of the 78 girls scoring in the high-risk range (greater-than-or-equal-to 20 points). Of the fema les 14 per cent and 4.2 per cent of the males fell in the low-risk ran ge (10-19 points). The additionally administered questionnaires showed significant differences between female and male adolescents but few d ifferences between the risk and the non-risk female group. Further ste ps in a larger epidemiological study are discussed to find out more de tails of the development of disturbed eating behaviours and their infl uence of turning to eating disorders.