ST. PAUL – High school girls in Minnesota were twice as likely to take diet pills in 2004 than they were five years earlier, according to the results of a new survey.
University of Minnesota researchers followed 2,500 young women from 1999 to 2004 and surveyed them on a variety of issues related to diet, exercise, weight and body image. The early results showed 7.5 percent used diet pills, but the later results jumped to 14.2 percent.
One in five women ages 19 to 20 used diet pills, according to the Project EAT (Eating Among Teens) survey released Monday. One in five also admitted using diet pills or laxatives, vomiting or skipping meals – strategies the researchers characterized as very unhealthy.
“These numbers are startling, and they tell us we need to do a better job of helping our daughters feel better about themselves and avoid unhealthy weight-control behaviors,” Dianne Neumark-Sztainer, the lead researcher for the project, said in a prepared statement.
The survey, which covered students in the St. Paul, Minneapolis and Osseo school districts, also showed that less than 20 percent of teenage women are overweight, though a majority of them are worried about their weight.
As young women reach their teen years, they feel more pressure and they also have greater financial resources and access to diet pills and laxatives, said Sharon Berry, a psychologist with Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota.
“That’s when the comparisons to others occur, at a time when you want to feel just like everybody else,” she said. “So the pressure intensifies.”
Meanwhile, a comparable number of young men followed in the study were only half as likely to attempt very unhealthy methods of weight loss. Young men also reported more than six hours of exercise per week, while young women reported less than four hours.
Related posts: