Is there an association between disordered eating behaviors and suicide ideation among female adolescents sampled in The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health Wave II?

Introduction: Reducing rates of youth suicide and reducing relapse rates of adolescent eating disorders have been identified as goals of Healthy People 2010. Currently, a small body of research focuses on the co-morbidity of adolescent suicide and eating disorders although indications of an association, especially for adolescent girls are clear.

Objectives: This study seeks to determine if female adolescents who report engaging in weight controlling behaviors (i.e., vomiting, using diet pills or laxatives) also report thoughts of suicide and if so, whether such thoughts are more serious or severe when compared with girls who report no weight controlling behaviors.

Methods: A subset of cross-sectional data were collected from a representative sample of 14,738 adolescents participating in the second wave of The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health.

Results: We will present results of multivariate logistic regression testing for the association between weight-control related behaviors and the presence and severity of suicide ideation, controlling for age, income, race/ethnicity, self-worth, body size indicators (height, weight, BMI), and depression. Depending on the distribution of the data, alternative regression models may be considered.

Conclusions: This study has public health implications by providing insight to health care professionals of the associated risk factors of youth presenting with either suicidal or disordered eating behaviors, and for informing policy and prevention models addressing adolescent suicide and eating disorders.