Co-occurring eating and depressive problems: An 8-year study of adolescentgirls

Objective: This paper examines prospectively the co-occurrence of eating an d depressive problems in 105 White girls who were seen at three times from young adolescence to young adulthood. Method: Girls were from middle to upp er-middle class families. Go-occurrence of eating and depressive problems w as determined cross-sectionally from questionnaire data using established c riteria for identifying subclinical problems. Results: The rate of depressi ve problems declines across middle to late adolescence while the rate of ea ting problems is fairly constant across all three times of assessment. Anal yses suggest that girls with depressive problems (with and without co-occur ring eating problems) experience impairments in peer and family relationshi ps; girls with high scores on both problems have poor adjustment across sev eral domains. Discussion: The additional psychological strains seen with co -occurrence of eating and depressive problems heighten physical and mental health concomitants of both problems across adolescence. (C) 2001 by John W iley & Sons, Inc.