LOS ANGELES, March 19 (UPI) -- African-American girls are 50 percent more likely to be bulimic than white girls, researchers said.
Michelle Goeree of the University of Southern California, John Ham of the University of Maryland and Daniela Iorio of the Universitat de Autonoma Barcelona in Spain said the study findings challenge the widespread perception that bulimia primarily affects privileged, white teenagers such as "Gossip Girl" character Blair Waldorf.
Using data from a 10-year survey of more than 2,300 girls in schools in California, Ohio and Washington, D.C., found girls from families in the lowest income bracket studied are 153 percent more likely to be bulimic than girls from the highest income bracket.
The study also found that:
-- Black girls scored an average of 17 percentage points higher than their white counterparts on the widely used medical index gauging the severity of the bulimia.
-- Bulimia affected 1.5 percent of girls in households where at least one parent had a college degree.
-- For girls whose parents had a high school education or less, 3.3 percent were bulimic.
The findings were published by the Institute of Economic Policy at USC.
