“Feeling fat”is not the prerogative of teens and young women complexed by their body. 62% of women over 50 recognize that their weight or line has a negative impact on their lives, find American researchers at the University of North Carolina.
Their study published in the International Journal of Eating Disorders reveals that 13% of women over 50 are obsessed with their weight to the point of suffering from eating disorders. Disorders that take different forms: anorexia, bulimia, extreme sport …
The study involved 1,849 women with an average age of 59 from across the United States. More than a quarter of them were obese, 29% Overweight, 42% of normal build and 2% too thin.
They answered a range of questions such as the way they eat, the image they have of their body, their attitude to their weight loss …
The responses provided by the participants underline that the obsession with weight transcends ages and can affect young women as well as women over 75 years old.
3.5% of women over 50 admitted to compulsive eating in the past month, while almost 8% reported “purging” to eliminate food in the past five years. To lose weight and change their body, they use different strategies: diet pills (7%), excess sport (7%), diuretics (2.5%), laxatives (2%), induce vomiting (1%) .
Slimming: 79% of people over 50 do not like their body
This dissatisfaction with their physique goes as far as affecting their own perception (79%). A nagging feeling among 64% of the women surveyed who admit to thinking about it every day. 40% of those over 50 are weighed every day.
While these eating behaviors were more common among 50-year-old women, 75-year-old women were also affected by this problem.
The origin of these eating disorders is not always to be found in the adolescence of the participants, specify the researchers. Some developed them late after the age of 50.
This raises the question of how to deal with these behaviors, which prove to be more harmful to the health of women when they are elderly. These eating disorders increase the risk of heart, intestinal or muscle problems.
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