Girls with Type 1 Diabetes: At Risk of Disturbed Eating Behaviors

Girls with type 1 diabetes are known to be at increased risk of developing persistent disturbed eating behaviors and/or subthreshold eating disorders. A team from the Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, recently found that disturbed eating behaviors are neither transient nor benign among girls with type 1 diabetes.

At the 2007 Eating Disorders Research Society meeting last fall, Patricia Colton, MD, FRCPC, and her colleagues reported the results of their 5-year study of girls with type 1 diabetes. The longitudinal, prospective cohort study recruited girls who were 9 to 13 years of age at the beginning of the study. The girls completed a structured diagnostic interview for eating disorders at up to 5 follow-up assessments over 5 years. Body mass index and hemoglobin A1c were also measured at these follow-up visits.

At baseline, multiple assessments were available for 116 of the 126 girls (92.1%) of participants. At the 5-year follow-up, 49.0% of the girls exhibited disturbed eating behaviors, and 13.3% of the girls met the criteria for a current sub-threshold or full-syndrome eating disorder. As their ages rose, so did the prevalence of disturbed eating behavior and eating disorders. Disturbances in eating behavior were highly persistent from early to later stages of the study and were associated with significantly higher body mass index, but were not consistently linked to worsening metabolic control. Rates of overweight and obesity were high in this sample of patients: 34.7% and 10.2%, respectively.