Self-induced vomiting to lose weight appears to be on the rise among younger and younger children.
A recent study out of Taiwan that researchers wrote about in the Journal of Clinical Nursing revealed some startling statistics: Out of 16,000 respondents, 15 percent of 13 to 15-year-olds said they had tried vomiting to lose weight in the last year and nearly 16 percent of 10 to 12-year-olds said they had.
This behavior was most prevalent among children who engaged in other unhealthy behaviors. For instance, more than 20% of those who said they’d tried vomiting also said they ate fried food on a daily basis, and 18% said they spent more than two hours a day sitting at a computer.
“It showed that self-induced vomiting was most prevalent in adolescents who had a sedentary lifestyle, slept less and ate unhealthily,” said Dr. Yiing Mei Liou, the study’s lead author.
In the United States, according to a 2009 study by the Centers for Disease Control, 4% of teens in the U.S. said they had vomited or taken laxatives to lose weight in the 30 days before the survey.
Self-induced vomiting is not necessarily the same as bulimia but it is still an eating disorder. Vomiting to lose weight can lead to more serious eating disorders like Bulimia and Anorexia.
Bulimia nervosa is an eating disorder where people binge and purge. In binge eating people may eat a huge amount of food: snacks, several helpings of food, and a large portion of desert in 2 hours or so, then purge. They try to get rid of the food by vomiting or taking laxatives (usually in secret). Continue reading Kids Vomiting to Lose Weight
