Eating attitudes and weight concerns in female low birth weight adolescents.

Objective: Studies of clinically referred patients have implicated low birth weight (LBW) as a possible risk factor for eating disorders. This study examines eating attitudes and weight concerns in nonreferred LBW female adolescents.

Method: 274 LBW girls (mean age 15.9) belonging to a prospective regional LBW birth cohort completed the Eating Attitudes Test (EAT-26) and items from the Eating Symptoms Inventory on weight perception and weight dissatisfaction.

Results: Only 2.3% scored above threshold for eating disorder risk on the EAT-26. A total of 25% perceived themselves as overweight and 18.7% perceived themselves as underweight, while 63.4% desired to lose and 17.7% desired to gain weight. Girls who perceived themselves as overweight or desired to lose weight had higher mean EAT scores than those who did not.

Conclusion: Nonreferred adolescent girls born at LBW are not, as a whole, at risk for abnormal eating attitudes and negative perceptions of their weight.