Not just a western girls' problem: Eating attitudes among Israeli-Arab adolescent boys and girls

The aim of the study was to compare eating attitudes and behaviours between Israeli-Arab adolescent boys and girls from two religious, age and residential settings subgroups. The sample consisted of 1966 Israeli-Arab adolescents, from Grades 7-12 (42% boys, 93% Muslims and 7% Christians), who completed the Eating Attitude Test (EAT-26), demographic and clinical questionnaires. The girls had significantly higher EAT-26 scores than boys. Of the students, 17.6% (18.7% of girls and 16.4% of boys) had disturbed eating attitudes (EAT-26>20). No significant differences were found between girls and boys in age and religious affiliation subgroups; however, more girls in urban areas had disturbed eating attitudes than boys. The results demonstrate a high prevalence of disturbed eating attitudes among both male and female Israeli-Arab adolescents and emphasise that boys are at risk as much as girls. It is suggested that there are more similarities than differences between boys and girls.