llowed over an 8-year period from young adolescence to young adulthood. Over a quarter of the sample scored above the level identifying a serious eating problem at each of the 3 times of assessment (14, 16, and 22 years of age.) (Graber, Brooks-Gunn, Paikoff, and Warren). Like Attie's and Brooks-Gunn's study, this project also found that eating disorders were triggered during the pubertal stage of girls. This is why the researchers recommended, among all else, that primary prevention be indicated for all girls in early adolescence. (Graber, Brooks-Gun, Paikoff, and Warren, pp.831-832). Together with pubertal causes, there has also been evidence suggesting that dating is an ingredient to this phenomenon. Psychologists Elizabeth Cauffman and Laurence Steinberg examined 89 12-13 year old girls and examined their dating and other heterosexual activities in relation to their dieting behaviours and attitudes. The two researchers found that girls who were more involved in mixed-sex social activities and dating boys were more likely to exhibit disordered eating tendencies. (Cauffman and Steinberg.) The authors made the intriguing finding that sexual activity is correlated with more symptoms of disordered eating. This is especially interesting in as much as adults with eating disorders tend to be less sexually active. It thus appears that physical involvement in early adolescence leads to increased concern about appearance and attractiveness, but that when this concern becomes so great that it leads to disordered eating, the end result is often a decrease of the activities that contributed to the disorder in the first place. (Cauffman and Steinberg, p.634) Eati...
