P R E S S   R E L E A S E

           Most studies on eating disorders focused on adolescent girls.  Eating behaviors of adult females as well as their body concerns have seldom been examined.  This gives the general public a misconception that eating disorders are mainly problems of naive teenage girls.

           A recent study on eating behaviors of adult Chinese women in Hong Kong shows that a great majority of them (92.1%) are concerned about body weight and shape.  The study, jointly conducted by Professor Freedom Leung Yiu-kin and Ms Christine Lau of the Department of Psychology at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, researched the body concerns and eating behaviors of 484 Hong Kong female nurses aged between 20 and 55.

           Results showed that two-third of these female nurses (64.7%) thought a slim body was very important; nearly half of them (47.9%) believed that their self-worthiness would be enhanced if they become slimmer.  Many of these women were particularly dissatisfied with their belly (79.8%), thighs (70.9%), buttocks (68.4%), and waist (62.2%).  In order to lose weight, a significant number of women sampled had tried dieting (39.4%) and half of them (49.2%) had practiced excessive exercises.

           Nearly 40 percent (39.8%) of these women reported uncontrollable binge eating episodes, and 7.9% did so on a weekly basis.  To compensate the excessive food intake, a number of women would pathogenically try self-induced vomiting (5.3%) and consume laxatives (9.9%) to lose weight.  More alarmingly, 4.3% and 0.6% of these women actually reported suffering from bulimia and anorexia nervosa respectively before.  These figures are as high as what have been reported in the West.

           These findings are particularly disturbing as all sampled women in this study were nurses, professionals who are supposed to know much better than the general public about how to take care of their health.  These findings clearly indicate that eating disorders are not just problems of naive teenage girls.  Many adult Chinese women in Hong Kong are highly obsessed with having a slim body figure, and 5 percent of them actually suffered from clinical eating pathologies in their life time.