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In the US alone there are as many as 10 million females and 1 million males dealing with one of the two types of eating disorders, bulimia nervosa or anorexia nervosa. The national health agencies do not have a count of binge eating disorders but it could be as much as three times that number.
Statistics on eating disorders:
40% of newly identified cases of anorexia are in girls 15 to 19 years old (Hoek and van Hoeken, 2003).
42% of 1st-3rd grade girls want to be thinner (Collins, 1991).
81% of 10 year olds are afraid of being fat (Mellin et al., 1991).
The average American woman is 5'4" tall and weighs 140 pounds. The average American model is 5'11" tall and weighs 117 pounds.
Most fashion models are thinner than 98% of American women (Smolak, 1996).
Only 33% of people with anorexia and 6% of people with bulimia receive mental health care (Hoek and van Hoeken, 2003).
35% of "normal dieters" progress to pathological dieting. Of those, 20-25% progress to partial or full-syndrome eating disorders (Shisslak & Crago, 1995).
Over 50% of teenage girls and nearly 33% of teenage boys use unhealthy weight control
behaviors such as skipping meals, fasting, smoking cigarettes, vomiting, and taking laxatives
(NeumarkSztainer, 2005).
Girls who diet frequently are 12 times as likely to binge as girls who don’t diet (NeumarkSztainer, 2005).
25% of American men and 45% of American women are on a diet on any given day (Smolak, 1996).
51% of 9 and 10 year-old girls feel better about themselves if they are on a diet (Mellin et al., 1991).
46% of 9-11 year-olds are "sometimes" or "very often" on diets, and 82% of their families are "sometimes" or "very often" on diets (Gustafson-Larson & Terry, 1992).
91% of women recently surveyed on a college campus had attempted to control their weight through dieting, 22% dieted "often" or "always" (Kurth et al., 1995).
Males who wrestle show a disproportionate increase in eating disorders with rates 7 to 10 times higher than normal.
95% of all dieters will regain their lost weight in 1-5 years (Grodstein, 1996).
Americans spend over $40 billion on dieting and diet-related products each year (Smolak, 1996).
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