Comparison of eating attitudes among male and female school teachers

In the broader sense, the term “eating disorder” may refer to any destructive or self-defeating pattern of eating behavior. Typically persons with eating disorders are preoccupied with food, weight and their personal body image. This study was conducted on a sample of four thousand school teachers of Punjab state, out of which one thousand one hundred and fifty were male teachers and two thousand eight hundred and fifty were female teachers. Eating Attitudes Test (EAT-26, Garner et.al.1982) was used to measure eating disorders and eating behavior of the subjects. To compare the male and female teachers on eating behavior and its sub domains namely bulimia, dieting and oral control, t-test was employed. The level of significance was set at. 05. Descriptive statistics was evaluating the eating behavior among those teachers. It has been observed from the findings that male and female school teachers had shown no significant differences in dieting, oral control, bulimia as well as eating attitudes as whole whereas female teachers exhibited more tendencies of eating disorders. This may be attributed to the fact that male are more eating conscious. 36% male and 15% female teachers reported eating disordered behavior which includes binging and purging. Whereas, about one forth female teacher experienced disturbances in their eating behaviors in the form of binge, purge self-induced to vomiting, fasting, laxatives. Degree of eating disorders variations among male and female teachers may be because of gender and socio cultural differences.