Self-reported eating disorder psychopathology prevalence in community-based female and male Albertans: Gender and age group comparisons.

OBJECTIVE: We describe and compare eating disorder (ED) psychopathology prevalence in Canadian females and males across five age groups. METHOD: This secondary data analysis study used the Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire (EDE-Q) to assess ED psychopathology in 1,316 Alberta community-based female and male participants, aged 15 to 71. RESULTS: Overall, 15.3% of female and 8.2% of male participants reported clinically-significant ED disturbances. Female participants reported greater global ED psychopathology than male participants, except older men and women aged 65-71, who reported similar, relatively low levels of global ED psychopathology. Women aged 65-71 endorsed less global ED psychopathology than younger females. More females than males reported regular binge eating and self-induced vomiting, whereas other ED behaviors were endorsed at similar rates. DISCUSSION: This large-scale study, the first involving a Canadian sample, contributes to a small literature on ED psychopathology in community-based samples. The finding that 15% of female and 8% of male Albertans aged 15 to 71 endorsed clinically-significant ED disturbances is concerning; however, women aged 65-71 reported lower ED psychopathology than younger females. Gender and age differences were observed in global ED psychopathology. Routine ED screening of non-clinical adolescents and adults is warranted to permit prevention and early intervention.

The influence of impulsiveness on binge eating and problem gambling: A prospective study of gender differences in Canadian adults.

This study investigated the degree to which facets of impulsiveness predicted future binge eating and problem gambling, 2 theorized forms of behavioral addiction. Participants were 596 women and 406 men from 4 age cohorts randomly recruited from a Canadian province. Participants completed self-report measures of 3 facets of impulsiveness (negative urgency, sensation seeking, lack of persistence), binge-eating frequency, and problem-gambling symptoms. Impulsiveness was assessed at baseline, and assessments of binge eating and problem gambling were followed up after 3 years. Weighted data were analyzed using zero-inflated negative binomial and Poisson regression models. We found evidence of transdiagnostic and disorder-specific predictors of binge eating and problem gambling. Negative urgency emerged as a common predictor of binge eating and problem gambling among women and men. There were disorder-specific personality traits identified among men only: High lack-of-persistence scores predicted binge eating and high sensation-seeking scores predicted problem gambling. Among women, younger age predicted binge eating and older age predicted problem gambling. Thus, there are gender differences in facets of impulsiveness that longitudinally predict binge eating and problem gambling, suggesting that treatments for these behaviors should consider gender-specific personality and demographic traits in addition to the common personality trait of negative urgency.