Adolescent Substance Use and Eating Disorders

The research literature indicates that, in general, adult women with bulimic symptoms are more likely to use or abuse a variety of substances relative to their peers with anorexic symptoms or no eating disorder symptoms at all. In other words, it appears that bulimia may be an indicator of increased likelihood to use drugs, or vice versa. There have been few studies involving adolescent girls, and most of those that have been conducted have used nonclinical samples. With these samples of high school or college students, the presence of bulimic behavior is typically related to increased substance use. Still, what about girls who meet diagnostic criteria for an eating disorder? Is substance use among adolescents with eating disorders best explained by particular eating disorder symptoms or by certain clinical and personality characteristics which are associated with disordered eating?


Editor's Note: Don't miss our more recent issue, Adolescent Eating Disorders & Body Dissatisfaction, printed in 2007.