Association of body image and eating disorders in adolescents in Minas Gerais (Brazil)

Introduction: During adolescence biological and personality changes occur simultaneously, so, along with the body, the mental image also changes, so the teenager begins to devise an ideal body image does not correspond to their actual body image. To assess the association between body image distortion and eating behavior disorders in adolescents. Methods: The study was cross-sectional, with 335 public school students. Data collected: weight, height, body mass index, socioeconomic information, food frequency, Eating Attitudes Test (EAT), scale silhouette figures and puberty bone pain. The association of body image and eating attitudes were evaluated by chi-square test. Results: The mean age of the adolescents was 14.49 years, the average age of menarche was between 9 and 12 years and the mean BMI of 21.19 kg / m(2). The Nutritional status in the pubertal stage of sexual maturation in relation to the breasts and pubic hair, showed that around 65% were normal weight. Dissatisfaction by excess weight accounted for 48.4% of the sample and 23.3% susceptibility to the development of eating behavior disorders. More than a quarter of adolescents who had a distorted body image, also presented themselves susceptible to the development of eating behavior disorders (p <0.001). Discussion: The sample in this study has shown a significant number of overweight, which can be a factor for the development of eating behavior disorders and body image distortion. Conclusion: The results suggest that there was a significant number of adolescents who presented the association of two factors detrimental to health, which are the body image distortion and susceptibility to the development of eating behavior disorders.