A comparison of disordered eating attitudes and behaviors among Filipino and American college students

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to compare the levels of eating disordered attitudes and behaviors among college students in the United States and the Philippines. DESIGN: A convenience-based cross-sectional survey. SETTING: General education classes in one college in Manila and another in the Western US. PARTICIPANTS: 340 college students. INTERVENTIONS: A paper-pencil survey was given to the students in the classroom consisting of Eating Attitudes Test (EAT-26) and demographic variables. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Eating disordered attitudes and behaviors (scoring 20 or more on EAT-26) was the dependent variable, while gender and country of residence were the two main independent variables. ANALYSIS: Frequency distributions, chi-squares, and logistic regression analysis were employed to summarize and analyze the data. RESULTS: Filipino students were 10.9 times (p-value <0.0001) more likely to have eating disordered attitudes and behaviors than their American counterparts controlling for the demographics collected. This relationship remained significant when regression models were done for each gender separately. In addition, married students and more specifically married female students were more likely to have eating disordered attitudes and behaviors than single students or single females. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: Arguments are made as to why higher levels of eating disordered attitudes and behaviors are observed among Filipino college students. These results provide important information about the levels of eating disordered attitudes and behaviors in the Philippines and may be useful for developing future education programs. ©2006, Editrice Kurtis.