Abstract:
In this study the researcher wanted to find out if there were more adolescents with eating problems in single-gender or co-educational schools, if there was a specific age group that is more prone to develop a problem with eating and if there were any specific common factors that cause the development of eating problems.
The study has been conducted with 200 subjects at four randomly selected high schools and 50 members of the Eating Disorder Support Group of the Westville Hospital in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal.
Research questionnaires were developed with help of a panel of experts and clinicians in the field of Educational Psychology and two different institutions. Schools were chosen randomly and the principals of the schools, the parents and participants were debriefed and consent was given to conduct the study. Female learners from four (two single-gender and two co-educational) schools were selected with the stratified sampling method. One questionnaire with closed-ended questions was given to the learners of the different high schools and a questionnaire with open-ended questions was given to the members of the Eating Disorder Support Group. The quantitative data was analyzed with the help of the SPSS statistics programme and the Chi-square and linear-by-linear Chi-square correlation test was used to analyse the data. The qualitative data was captured by summarising common specific themes from responses to the open-ended questions.
The study confirmed the researcher’s hypothesis that there are more adolescents with eating problems in single-gender schools than in co-educational schools. It was found that the older age group (17-18 years) seemed to be more prone to develop problems with eating. Furthermore, common themes such as low self-esteem, influences from the media, family unit and peers and pressure at school were identified as being reasons for developing eating problems.
The research findings were important for the development of prevention and intervention programmes and added information to better understand the development of the problem in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal.
