Questions 1
This study started with individuals in their final years of high school. Do you believe that this age group was appropriate or would you recommend any changes in relation to age?
posted by Tiffany DeMay @ 1:21 PM
16 comments
16 Comments:
The objective of this study was met by using this age group, they wanted to focus on adolescence to young adulthood. While reading the research and some of the questions that were asked (i.e, how often have you gone on a diet in the last year?) I think that researching a younger population may be more beneficial for figuring intervention time. If they were to include freshman in high school who answers yes to that question or similar ones we would be able to tailor intervention to the age groups that need it and prevent disordered eating before it occurs.
I beleive attitudes towards eating and unhealthy eating behaviours start earlier than highschool so I do believe that beginning maybe around middle school and extending the followup to 15 years would have been beneficial. It may have also been interesting to do followup in 5 year increments so that we may see change throughout different points in life. I would suspect that during college, diet quality would decrease but perhaps after school had concluded diet quality may improve.
Since the purpose of the study was to observe dieting and disordered eating habits from adolescence to adulthood for intervention purposes, I think that it could have been more beneficial to start at an earlier age than juniors and seniors. We learn eating habits at a very young age and I think that by the time we are young adults, we may have established many of our habits. We are easily influenced by the world around us at a young age and often develop our own patterns by observing others around us. This is why I believe it would have been better to begin the study with middle school or junior high students rather than older high school students.
Stephanie, I completely agree with researching younger populations to find out when the bad habits begin. Intervening before the problem occurs I think is our best chance to stop a problem (and as we see with obesity, also much cheaper). From what I've learned through my rotations so far, our health care system seems to also be turning this way and beginning to support and promote preventative measures versus treatment.
I think they should have started at a younger age and continued to follow the participants up into high school and early adulthood. In the experiences I have witnessed, disordered eating patterns began at an earlier age. It also would have been interesting to include their mothers in the research. I've seen multiple cases where moms who yo yo diet have a major influence on their children's eating habits. Starting at a younger age and including more variables in the study would make it more reliable in my opinion. This would also provide more of an insight of when the best age to start an intervention or provide education may be.
I believe that juniors and seniors were an appropriate age group to study but including younger populations would be beneficial as well. Since eating patterns begin early, it would be interesting to compare interventions for 3 different age groups: elementary, junior high, and high school.
Jamie, I like your idea of including mothers in the study. Parents model eating behaviors to their kids and may not realize that their unhealthy habits can be passed down. Maybe one of the intervention groups in a future study could include moms and kids so that both are recieving similar information at the same time.
Kathy, I agree with you in that it would be interesting to compare the groups to find and trends in disordered eating.
If I understand the article right, the younger cohort was around 13 years old, or late junior high when they were first tested, so I think the researchers did try to a young age group to catch behaviors right when they start. It seems like weight concerns arise with the onset of adolesence and body changes, which since they can begin as early as 5th or 6th grade, perhaps the researchers should have started there.
I felt the target age groups were appropriate for the question the study was researching for. I don't believe it is appropriate for a study to draw conclusions from data they were not seeking in the first place. This could stimulate a new study though. However, like Stephanie said, if the objective of they study was to pinpoint the average age when restrictive eating occurs, then that study should probably include a younger audience.
I would like to see this study observing children as young as when they begin school. I would recommend this because it would show how young disordered eating might begin.
Jamie-
Excellent point about involving the mothers. Parents are role models for their kids and they tend to try and do what they do. I also think it would also be interesting to ask questions to see if the child was ever teased for their looks etc when they were younger and see if there is a possible link
Meg-
It does appear a lot of body image concerns do appear in times when the body is changing. Again, I wonder if teasing (like someone teasing a person that is "chubby" when they are little) could result in eating problems in the future. If so, I wonder how young this would start.
I think that this is a very appropriate age group to use for this type of study. I feel that this is the age group, late high school early college, is the beginning of fad dieting for some. This is also the age where the parent plays less of a role as the food provider and the young adult starts making all of the food choices for his/her self.
Kevin, I agree that college aged students are a key population to look at because they are independent of their parents completely when it comes to their diet. I think that often this is why the studies on eating disorders and body image with the college population show such high percentages. But I do believe that the habits and tendencies of eating disorderes are learned usually before college, they are just seen more visibly when the individual is completely alone to decide on thier eating behaviours.
I appreciated Kevin's comment about eating disorders being more possible as kids leave home and make more food choices for themselves. Like Jamie and some others had mentioned, studying young kids would be interesting, especially to see if and how disordered eating happens when kids are still relying on their parents to do shopping and food prep.
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