Assessment of eating disorder and obesity among youth in Saudi Arabia

Objectives of the present study were; to compare the eating disorders among different classes of obesity; to study the association of eating disorder with sleep, smoking, meal and physical activity; and to investigate the relationship of obesity with eating disorders. We divided 55 selected participants into three different groups of obesity; Obese Class I (30 < 35 kg/m(2)), Obese Class II (35 < 40 kg/m(2)) and Obese Class III (>= 40.00 kg/m(2)). We administered Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire (EDE-Q) to all participants. Demographic data was collected through online questionnaire. To compare EDE-Q scores, one-way anova was employed. To examine association of EDEQ with sleep, meal habits, smoking and physical activity, Chi Square was used. To investigate relationship between relationship obesity and eating disorders, Pearson product moment correlation was used. There was no significant difference in EDE-Q obese groups, F (2.52) = 0.247, p = 0.782. Our analysis could not establish any significant relationship between Obesity and EDE-Q (r= -0.11, n=55, p= 0.938). No significant association was seen between eating disorder and physical activity X (1) = .582, p=0.748; smoking X (1) = .004, p=0.947; sleep X (1) = .845, 1,0.362; and meal status X (1) = 1.331, 1,0.514. It can be concluded that although no significant difference was seen in EDE-Q but in all three obese classes EDE-Q scores were on higher sides. No correlation seen between obesity and EDE-Q.