Mayo Clinic Health Manager
Get free personalized health guidance for you and your family.
Get Started
About our e-newsletters
- Free e-newsletters
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- We do not share your e-mail address
Housecall, our weekly general-interest e-newsletter, keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics with timely, reliable, practical information, recipes, blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts and more. Our biweekly topic-specific e-newsletters also include blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts, and other useful information that will help you manage your health.
Housecall Archives
Mayo Clinic Housecall
Stay up to date on the latest health information.
What you get
- Free weekly e-newsletter
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- Recipes, tools and other helpful information
- We do not share your e-mail address
Risk factors
By Mayo Clinic staffIn Western, industrialized countries, only about 1 percent to 3 percent of women experience bulimia during their life. The rate of bulimia in men is about one-tenth of that in women. Bulimia often begins in late adolescence or early adulthood — transitional periods that are often accompanied by increasing peer pressure, dieting and emotional upheaval. Bulimia is more common in college students than in adolescents.
Although the precise cause of bulimia isn't known, researchers have identified certain factors that seem to increase the risk of developing or triggering bulimia, including:
- Dieting. People who lose weight are often reinforced by positive comments from others and by seeing their own changing appearance. Children who diet are more likely than those who don't to develop an eating disorder such as bulimia. In addition, people with bulimia may excessively restrict their eating. That dieting can trigger a binge episode, leading to purging and then more dieting — and consequently a vicious cycle.
- Puberty. Some adolescents have trouble coping with the changes their bodies go through during puberty. They also may face increased peer pressure and may have a heightened sensitivity to criticism or even casual comments about their weight or body. All of these can set the stage for bulimia and other eating disorders.
- Transitions. Whether it's heading off to college, moving, landing a new job or a relationship breakup, change can bring emotional distress. One way to cope, especially in situations that may be out of someone's control, is to latch on to something that you can control, such as eating. Excessive control over eating can lead to eating disorders.
- Sports, work and artistic activities. Athletes, actors and television personalities, dancers, and models are at higher risk of eating disorders such as bulimia. Eating disorders are particularly common among ballerinas, gymnasts, runners and wrestlers. Coaches and parents may contribute to eating disorders by suggesting that young athletes lose weight.
- Media and society. The media, such as television and fashion magazines, frequently feature a parade of skinny beauties. But whether the media merely reflect social values or actually drive them is debatable. In any case, exposure to these images may lead girls and young women — and their male counterparts — to believe that thinness equates to success and popularity.
