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TOPLINE:

Teens from families experiencing financial hardship were more likely to develop eating disorders, with each additional hardship linked to a 6% higher risk. Children whose parents had only compulsory education were 1.64 times more likely to develop eating disorders than those with university-educated parents.

METHODOLOGY:

• Researchers analyzed data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, which recruited pregnant women in Avon, England, with expected deliveries from April 1, 1991, to December 31, 1992.
• A total of 7824 participants were included in the final analytical sample, with 4003 (51.1%) of them being men and 294 (3.8%) from minority ethnic backgrounds.
• The primary outcomes were disordered eating, weight and shape concerns, and body dissatisfaction at ages 14, 16, and 18 years, while the secondary outcome was individual disordered eating behavior.
• Main exposures included parental income, education, occupation, financial hardship score (range, 0-15), and area-level deprivation, assessed between 32 weeks gestation and 47 months postpartum.

TAKEAWAY:

• Each 1-point rise in financial hardship was linked to higher odds of disordered eating (odds ratio [OR], 1.06; 95% CI, 1.04-1.10), increased weight and body shape concerns (coefficient, 0.02; 95% CI, 0.01-0.04), and increased body dissatisfaction (coefficient, 0.22; 95% CI, 0.06-0.37).
• Having parents with less education was linked to higher odds of disordered eating (OR, 1.80; 95% CI, 1.46-2.23) than those who had parents with a university education.
• The prevalence of disordered eating increased from 7.9% at age 14 years to 15.9% at age 16 years and to 18.9% at age 18 years.

IN PRACTICE:

“Identifying and addressing existing barriers that might prevent young people from deprived backgrounds from accessing eating disorder services should be research and policy priority,” the study authors wrote. “Provision of comprehensive medical training might facilitate identification of a broader spectrum of eating disorder presentations in primary care, particularly in populations who are more likely to be missed.”

SOURCE:

The study was led by Jane S. Hahn, MSc of the Division of Psychiatry, at the University College London, England. It was published online on August 20 in JAMA Network Open.

LIMITATIONS:

Several people from low-income backgrounds dropped out of the study, which could have created bias in results. The tool used to measure restrictive eating may not have captured extreme restrictive behaviors like anorexia. 

DISCLOSURES:

Various study authors reported receiving grants from the National Institute for Health and Care Research, grants from Wellcome Trust, and personal fees from the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology outside of the submitted work. No other disclosures were reported. 

This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication.