Clever girls’ eating disorders

Anorexia could be “contagious” in girls’ schools, with pupils at single sex schools twice as likely to have an eating disorder compared with those educated elsewhere, Oxford University research suggests.

Experts said the findings suggested that such conditions were more likely to spread amid “aspirational cultures” which encourage perfectionism, and in female-dominated environments.

The study examined data covering 55,000 Swedish school pupils who finished high school between 2002 and 2010.

Overall, 2.4 per cent of girls had been diagnosed with an eating disorder.
“It might be an unintentional effect of the aspirational culture of some schools that makes eating disorders more likely; it might be that eating disorders are contagious and can spread within a school”
Dr Helen Bould, child and adolescent psychiatrist at the University of Oxford

But the figures varied significantly depending on the background of school pupils and type of school attended.

Those from well-educated families, who went to schools mostly made up of girls had rates of eating disorder at least twice as high as those from less educated backgrounds attending schools where girls were in the minority.

Researchers said girls might “learn” eating disorders from witnessing those of others, making such conditions more likely in environments dominated by females.