Experiences of eating disorders in women 30 years of age and older: a mixed-methods examination
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Clinicians and researchers have traditionally viewed eating disorders (EDs) as disorders of adolescence and early adulthood; however, mounting evidence suggests these debilitating disorders also occur in older women (those 30 years of age and older). Unfortunately, the vast majority of research conducted on EDs has ignored older age groups, making it difficult to determine whether older women represent a distinct group among those with EDs. In order to address this limitation I conducted two separate, but related, studies designed to explore the experiences of older Canadian women with EDs and whether this group differs from younger women with EDs in meaningful ways. Study 1 explored how a treatment seeking sample of women ages 30 years and older diagnosed with an ED (N=14) experience their ED and the precipitating factors of ED episodes among this age group using qualitative framework analysis. Study 2 examined the differences in ED severity, symptomatology, comorbidities, and quality of life between women under the age of 30 (younger women; n=338) and those 30 years and older (older women; n=98) in a treatment-seeking sample using quantitative methods. Across both studies the core ED experiences and symptoms of older women were not significantly different from those of younger women. However, differences emerged that suggest older women with EDs are somewhat less severe in terms of their ED symptomatology and comorbid mental disorders, yet older women with EDs may face some unique challenges and consequences that set them apart from their younger counterparts. These results are discussed in the context of previous research understanding the relationship between aging, mental health, and emotional regulation. In sum, the current thesis suggests treatment for older women with EDs should incorporate interventions designed to address the core symptoms of EDs, improve healthy emotion regulation skills, reduce shame, address the consequences for the patients’ families and partners, and treat the multitude of physical health complications seen in this group. Moreover, greater awareness should be brought to the occurrence of EDs in older age groups in order to reduce shame, stigma, and improve early detection of and treatment for EDs among this population.Clinicians and researchers have traditionally viewed eating disorders (EDs) as disorders of adolescence and early adulthood; however, mounting evidence suggests these debilitating disorders also occur in older women (those 30 years of age and older). Unfortunately, the vast majority of research conducted on EDs has ignored older age groups, making it difficult to determine whether older women represent a distinct group among those with EDs. In order to address this limitation I conducted two separate, but related, studies designed to explore the experiences of older Canadian women with EDs and whether this group differs from younger women with EDs in meaningful ways. Study 1 explored how a treatment seeking sample of women ages 30 years and older diagnosed with an ED (N=14) experience their ED and the precipitating factors of ED episodes among this age group using qualitative framework analysis. Study 2 examined the differences in ED severity, symptomatology, comorbidities, and quality of life between women under the age of 30 (younger women; n=338) and those 30 years and older (older women; n=98) in a treatment-seeking sample using quantitative methods. Across both studies the core ED experiences and symptoms of older women were not significantly different from those of younger women. However, differences emerged that suggest older women with EDs are somewhat less severe in terms of their ED symptomatology and comorbid mental disorders, yet older women with EDs may face some unique challenges and consequences that set them apart from their younger counterparts. These results are discussed in the context of previous research understanding the relationship between aging, mental health, and emotional regulation. In sum, the current thesis suggests treatment for older women with EDs should incorporate interventions designed to address the core symptoms of EDs, improve healthy emotion regulation skills, reduce shame, address the consequences for the patients’ families and partners, and treat the multitude of physical health complications seen in this group. Moreover, greater awareness should be brought to the occurrence of EDs in older age groups in order to reduce shame, stigma, and improve early detection of and treatment for EDs among this population.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
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 | 0.014 | 0.023 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.005 | 0.005 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.004 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.005 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 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, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
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".