Prevalence of anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa in Eastern Europe

Abstract

The prevalence of eating disorders can vary widely across population groups. It is necessary to estimate the prevalence of anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa worldwide, especially outside the Western Europe countries, America, and Australia, where most epidemiological studies have been conducted. Thus, the objective of the present review was to investigate the prevalence of anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa in Eastern European countries. Based on the WorldAtlas, we included a total of 10 countries, including Belarus, Bulgaria, Czechia, Hungary, Poland, Moldova, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, and Ukraine, in our assessment. The literature search was performed across the PubMed and PsycInfo databases. Additionally, the results obtained from Google Scholar searches were supplemented. The review was based on publications (papers and/or abstracts) solely in the English language. Before the 1989 democratic transformation, the two eating disorders in question were not studied in Eastern Europe. The review found that the prevalence of anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa has risen in eight out of 10 Eastern European countries over the three past decades. In several studies, the prevalence estimates were based on sparse data. To date, no studies have been published on the prevalence of the two eating disorders in Belarus and Bulgaria. The studies were limited to prevalence surveys only. Furthermore, the prevalence of anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa in Eastern European countries has been investigated using different measures and, in many cases, non-representative and relatively small population samples. Despite these limitations, the existing data demonstrate that anorexia and bulimia are prevalent in these countries. Future epidemiological studies, and comparable prevalence estimates, are needed for the realistic assessment of the scale of the problem of anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa across Eastern Europe.