NÓBREGA, Géssyca Isbelo da.
Abstract:
Eating disorders are psychiatric illnesses that generate excessive and persistent preoccupations with physical and / or nutritional form, causing severe damages to the health of the individual. In the last decades, the body standard built and imputed by the media to society establishes, as a matter of priority, thinness, youth and physical perfection, making the majority of individuals seek a body in accordance with what is socially imposed. The present study aims to identify the prevalence of risk behaviors for eating disorders and body image, as well as the nutritional status of female students of the Federal University of Campina Grande (UFCG) - Campus de Cuité - PB. A quantitative field research of descriptive and transversal character was carried out. The research instruments used were the self-administered questionnaires, Body Shape Questionnaire (BSQ) and the Stunkard et al Silhouette Scale. 1983 which is composed of eight female figures, ranging from the leanest (A) to the fattest (H), for body image and the Eating Attitudes Test (EAT-26) for indicators of eating disorder. The questionnaires were numbered, and then the database was transferred to the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 13.0 for statistical analysis of the data. According to the BSQ, 56.9% of the students were dissatisfied with their body image. Regarding the scale of silhouettes, the prevalence in dissatisfaction with the body image was 83.7%. Regarding the EAT-26 analysis, 20.9% of the students had scores equal to or greater than 21, which is considered an indicator of risk for the development of TA. These results point to an inadequate relationship with food and body, which can have physical and psychic consequences and that should be considered by health professionals and educators to plan nutritional education strategies and programs for the prevention of eating disorders.
