Vegetarian? You might have an eating disorder. At least, that’s the takeaway from the latest work of Kelly Zuromski et al. published in Eating Behaviors that examined the prevalence of vegetarianism within three female samples with varying severity of eating disorder symptoms (i.e., nonclinical, subclinical, clinical). All participants came from locations in the southeastern U.S., and were included in the nonclinical group if they denied any lifetime eating pathology and were included in the subclinical group if they endorsed any eating pathology (i.e., fasting, binge eating, self-induced vomiting, laxative use, and excessive exercise) in the past month. The clinical group was women recruited from an eating disorder treatment center. Generally, the nonclinical group ate a wider variety of foods compared to the other groups. The prevalence of self-identified, lifetime vegetarianism was lowest in the nonclinical group (6.80%), and highest in the clinical group (34.80%), with the subclinical group falling in between (17.60%). Additionally,...
