Sunday, March 18, 2007

Bulimia

There was an article this morning in the Taipei Times which I found absolutely shocking and insightful. It was a study of bulimia in university students in Taiwan. Believe it or not, more male students than female reported sometimes using vomiting as a means of preventing weight gain! The study showed 16.4% of male students and only 12.8% of female students rarely, sometimes or often did. Crazy, eh? I think it really shows how widespread the misconceptions of weight are in Taiwan. This is the concluding paragraph of the article:
“The kind of pressure experienced by boys and girls may differ, and boys may be under more pressure than girls, he said. Pan said that the study showed over and over again that university students were not sufficiently aware of eating disorders and healthy eating habits, and lacked outlets to deal with pressure. He also said that popular culture and the beauty ideals it promoted probably led students to equate being thin with being attractive.”

Posted by Kathleen @ 7:30 PM