Older women not immune to eating disorders

NEW YORK, Nov 11 (Reuters) Even into their 60s, many women are unhappy with their weight and body shape, and a small percentage suffer from full-blown eating disorders, a new study suggests.

Though anorexia, bulimia and other eating disorders are mainly problems of young women, there has been some evidence that body-image issues and eating disorders also affect women in middle-age and beyond.

In the new study, Austrian researchers found that among 475 women 60 to 70 years old, 60 per cent said they were dissatisfied with their bodies. Moreover, four percent met the criteria for an eating disorder diagnosis.

For most of these women, the diagnosis was ''eating disorder-not otherwise specified'' -- where a person has eating disorder symptoms but does not meet all the criteria for anorexia or bulimia.

People with this diagnosis may, for example, have symptoms of anorexia but weigh in the normal range. Or they may purge by vomiting or abuse laxatives, but not binge-eat, as in bulimia.

It may surprise many people that older women can suffer from eating disorders, as even doctors are largely unaware of the problem, according to Dr Barbara Mangweth-Matzek, the study's lead author and a professor at Innsbruck Medical University.

That's because there's been virtually no research into the body-image and eating disturbances of older women, she told Reuters Health.

For their study, published in International Journal of Eating Disorders, Mangweth-Matzek and her colleagues surveyed a random sample of older women regarding their eating habits, body image and any eating disorder symptoms.

Overall, the study found, more than 60 per cent of the women were at least somewhat dissatisfied with their bodies -- including more than one-third of those who were in the normal weight range.

Almost 90 per cent said they ''felt'' fat to some degree.

Findings like these support the idea that once a woman wants to attain a slim ideal that feeling doesn't go away with age, according to Mangweth-Matzek.

Even as we grow older, she noted, ''ideals, wishes, preferences stay the same.'' For 18 women in the study -- or roughly four per cent -- the distortions in body image and eating habits were severe enough to signal an eating disorder. Another four percent had a single eating disorder symptom, most often binge-eating or use of laxatives or diuretics to lose weight.

It can be challenging to recognize an eating disorder in older women, according to Mangweth-Matzek, as appetite changes and weight loss can arise from various illnesses common among older adults.

And while only a small number of these women would be expected to have an eating disorder, she said, more research is needed to understand the true prevalence of the problem, and how to address it.

REUTERS BDP ND0928