Developmental trajectories of eating disorder symptoms: A longitudinal study from early adolescence to young adulthood
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Adolescence is a critical period for the development of eating disorders, but data is lacking on the heterogeneity of their evolution during that time-period. Group-based trajectories can be used to understand how eating disorders emerge and evolve over time. The aim of this study was to identify groups of individuals with distinct levels of eating disorder symptoms between 12 and 20 years and the onset of different types of symptoms. We also studied sex differences in the evolution and course of eating disorder symptoms from early adolescence to adulthood. METHODS: Using archival data from the QLSCD cohort, trajectories of eating disorder symptomatology were estimated from ages 12 to 20 years using semiparametric models. These trajectories included overall eating disorder symptomatology as measured by the SCOFF (Sick, Control, One Stone, Fat, Food), sex, and symptom-specific trajectories. RESULTS: Two groups of adolescents following distinct trajectories of eating disorder symptoms were identified. The first trajectory group included 30.9% of youth with sharply rising levels between 12 and 15 years, followed by high levels of symptoms between 15 and 20 years. The second trajectory group included 69.1% of youth with low and stable levels of symptoms between 12 and 20 years. Sex-specific models indicated that the proportion of girls in the high trajectory group was 1.3 times higher than the proportion of boys (42.8% girls vs. 32.3% boys). Trajectories of SCOFF items were similar for loss-of-control eating, feeling overweight, and attributing importance to food. The weight loss item had a different developmental pattern, increasing between 12 and 15 years and then decreasing between 17 and 20 years. CONCLUSIONS: The largest increase in eating disorder symptoms in adolescence is between the ages of 12 and 15 . Yet, most prevention programs start after 15 years of age. Our findings suggest that, unlike common practices, eating disorder prevention programs should aim to start before puberty.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Direct model labels (unvalidated)
Per-model category and study-design labels from the labeling rounds. They are machine output, unvalidated, and the disagreement between models ships as data. No study design here is MEDLINE-validated yet.
| Model arm | Categories | Study design | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| gemma | no category Domain: not available · Genre: Empirical About the Canadian research system: no · About a Canadian topic: no | Observational | low |
| gpt | no category Domain: not available · Genre: Empirical About the Canadian research system: no · About a Canadian topic: no | Observational | medium |
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedLabeled directly by 2 models reading the full record.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".