[Eating disorders in a student population. Epidemiologic data]

Most epidemiologic studies about eating disorders have emphasized the frequency of bulimic syndromes and occasional bulimic behaviors among students. The variability of clinical rates and diagnostic criteria used, partly explains the heterogeneousness of those studies. In our study, we used the BULIT questionnaire on a population of speech-therapy students, including all three years levels of training. 548 questionnaires were then analysed. We chose 88 as a discriminative score for occasional bulimic behaviors, and 102 for bulimic syndromes, as previously proposed by the authors of the questionnaire. We found that occasional bulimic behaviors and bulimic syndromes are less frequent in our sample compared to other studies. Nevertheless, a more precise analysis of the different items showed: a feeling of dissatisfaction towards eating habits, an exagerated fear of loss of control, frequent dysphoric feelings after overeating episodes. These findings confirm that eating is a very important concern in student population. These clinical symptoms could be considered as risk factors for eating disorders bulimia type, and might help prevention in such a population.