Stigmatization and attitudes toward eating disorders: a comparison between native German adolescents, Turkish immigrant adolescents in Germany, and native Turkish adolescents

Knowledge and Myths about Eating Disorders in a German Adolescent Sample: A Preliminary Investigation

“…Older students were more likely to distrust individuals with EDs and might endorse more myths about EDs. Studies examining the relationship between age, stigma, and ED literacy in adolescents are few but their results indicate no differences between younger and older adolescents (e.g., [ 5 , 6 ]).…”

“…Furthermore, students were recruited from a single school with a generally high level of education. Our results on ED-MHL may not be representative for adolescents in Germany attending other types of high schools, as adolescents from German schools of a lower educational level had problems in recognizing an ED in a vignette and identifying its causes [ 6 ]. This suggests that future studies should examine adolescent’s ED-MHL in different types of schools with varying levels of education.…”

“…One way that poor ED-MHL prevents treatment seeking is through the failure to realize the severity of symptoms or conditions that require treatment. Previous studies have found that adolescents’ recognition of EDs in themselves and others tends to be poor [ 5 , 6 ]. For example, many adolescents underestimate the severity of consequences associated with EDs while at the same time overestimating the prevalence of EDs [ 7 ].…”