Prevalence and Identification of Binge Eating Pattern Among University Students: A Cross Sectional Study

Binge eating pattern among university students

Abstract

Binge Eating Disorder (BED) is defined as a condition in which there is consumption of food in larger amounts in a very short time period than normal. Every week over 3 months the episodes of BED occur. BED is a diagnosis which differs from bulimia nervosa which is also an eating disorder. Objective: To find out the prevalence and identification of binge eating patterns among university students Methods: A cross sectional study was done at The University of Lahore, Lahore Campus for duration of 4 months, using convenient sampling technique. Data was collected from100 university students by a self-governing questionnaire. Different statistical tools were used in SPSS to analyze the data which included inferential statistics and cross tabulation. Results: The results revealed that students in this study included 32% males and 68% females from middle and upper middle socioeconomic class. The results revealed that 13% of students had fixed meal time while 87% did not, 84% were influenced by factors such as advertisements and stress etc., 83% could not stop eating, 54% were hostelites, 89% consumed instant food, 54% avoided hostel food and ate fast food, 80% had their habits changed due to being away from parents, 65% were stressed by eating in public, 76% of them had an influence of friends on their food habits and 61% were depressed after over-eating. According to the P-values which were<0.05 BED and stress (other factors) had a strong association with each other Conclusions: This study concludes that young generation needs guidance and help to cope up the stress and negative factors around them causing BED, promoting fast food and having bad eating habits. So, government as well as private sectors needs to do work on it by promoting activities and inducing strategies which promote healthy eating and coping up stress strategies.