Gender differences in the magnitude of the associations between eating disorders symptoms and depression and anxiety symptoms. Results from a community sample of adolescents

Abstract

Background: Studies reporting comorbidities of eating disorders (EDs) with depression and anxiety disorders during adolescence used clinical samples of female adolescents with few attempts to present the magnitude of these associations in population-based samples and to assess gender differences in the strength of these associations.

Aims: This study assesses significant gender differences in the association of anorexia nervosa (AN) and bulimia nervosa (BN) symptoms with depression and generalized anxiety symptoms in a community sample of adolescents.

Method: We collected anonymous self-reported data from 235 adolescent boys and 471 adolescent girls, through an online platform. To identify correlations between symptoms of AN and BN, and symptoms of depression and generalized anxiety, we used the Mann–Whitney U test. To identify differences between independent correlation coefficients, we converted each correlation coefficient into a z-score using Fisher's r-to-z transformation and, making use of the sample size employed to obtain each coefficient, we compared the z-scores.

Results: The magnitude of the associations between EDs symptomatology and depression and anxiety symptomatology was similar in adolescent boys and girls.

Conclusion: Our results show an urgent need to address EDs prevention in adolescent girls and boys from the community.

• Adolescents
• anorexia nervosa
• bulimia nervosa
• community-based sample
• depression
• generalized anxiety
• gender differences

Declaration of interest

This work was supported by the project ProYouth which received funding from the European Union, in the framework of the Health Program (PROYOUTH 20101209; www.pro-youth.eu). The authors declare no competing interests.