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"Typical" Eating Disorder Criteria Miss Males, Non-Whites

Criteria for diagnosing eating disorders have been designed around their most common patient, a white, teenage female. However, recent research shows that as many as one in four people with eating disorders are male, suggesting these guidelines may miss a large segment of eating disorder sufferers whose symptoms fall outside the "typical" experience of anorexia, bulimia or binge eating.

Researchers at Sanford University studying this problem say that doctors may be asking the wrong questions of male patients. While female patients are likely to describe wanting to be thin, male patients use more innocuous terms, describing their concerns as a desire to be athletically fit or healthy. Males were also less likely to engage in red-light behaviors such as vomiting or using laxatives to control their weight. As a result, 62 percent of male patients end up in the vague category of "Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified," or EDNOS.

Equally ignored, say researchers, are people of non-white ethnicities. Of particular concern are those of Alaskan Native and American Indian descent: On a web-based questionnaire, 47 percent reported having been hospitalized at least once for eating disorders. They also reported high rates of weight-related laxative use and dramatic differences in lifetime high and low weights, suggesting unhealthy fluctuations.

The findings, presented last week at the International Eating Disorders Conference in Baltimore, stress the need to further examine and expand diagnosis criteria for the disorders in hopes of better treating all patients.

Read more: Gender, ethnic differences may hamper eating disorder diagnosis, say Packard/Stanford researchers
On the Web: Anorexia Nervosa in Males, Bulimia Nervosa in Males, Binge Eating Disorder in Males