Prevalence of Eating Disorders among Female Students of University ( Tehran - Iran )

The present paper has been carried out to investigate the prevalence of eating disorders among the female students of Islamic Azad University, central Tehran branch. The subjects of this descriptive research were 400 people who were selected using Stratified Random sampling and were assessed using demographic questionnaires, EAT-26 eating observation test and diagnostic questionnaire of eating disorder. According to EAT-26 results, 21.5 percent of the students scored above the cutting point 20 and were diagnosed to have eating disorders. According to diagnostic questionnaire of eating disorder, 1.8% suffered from anorexia nervosa and 7.8% suffered from bulimia nervosa. The frequency of eating disorders is more or less similar to the stats of the other communities. It seems that now a high level of vulnerability against eating disorder exists in the women. These results refer to the necessity of planning for prevention and related activities to elude the consequences of this disorder and as a result, improve the level of the mental health of the individuals. [Azam Roshandel, Mahboobeh Safavi, Iran Ghasemi. Prevalence of Eating Disorders among Female Students of University (Tehran Iran). Life Sci J 2012;9(4):2822-2828] (ISSN:1097-8135). http://www.lifesciencesite.com. 414