Epidemiological study of problem eating behaviors and related attitudes in the general population

This article presents data on the eating behaviors and related attitudes among a probability sample of 2,075 adults living in the southeastern United States. These following results were found: 45.2% felt guilty after eating, 44.2% thought they had a weight problem, 21.9% had been dieting in the past 2 months; 12.9% reported some lifetime binging, 1.2% admitted self-induced vomiting, and 7.9% said their life was often dominated by food-related conflicts. Females, blacks, and those in the middle and lower socioeconomic status percentiles tended to have higher problem rates than their counterparts.