Eating attitudes, weight concerns and beliefs about drug effects in women who use ecstasy.

The drug ecstasy has appetite suppressant and exercise promoting effects that may appeal to young women who are concerned about weight and body image. This study therefore aimed to determine whether young women who use ecstasy differ from those who do not use this drug in concerns about eating and weight, and in beliefs about how these are affected by recreational drugs. One hundred and thirty young women, all cigarette smokers, were recruited; 73 who used ecstasy were compared with 57 who did not. All were assessed on Garner's (1991) Eating Disorder Inventory (EDI-2), body mass index (BMI), depression and beliefs about the effects of different drugs on appetite, exercise and weight. The two groups did not differ on number of cigarettes smoked per day, depression scores, current BMI, lowest achieved BMI or ideal BMI. Ecstasy users had significantly higher scores than controls on four of the 11 sub-scales of the EDI: bulimia, impulse dysregulation, social insecurity and interpersonal distrust. For ecstasy users, scores on all four scales correlated positively with frequency of ecstasy use. However there were no group differences in "drive for thinness" or "body dissatisfaction" which may suggest that differences on other factors are related more to use of club drugs than to any specific eating pathology. Ecstasy users were more likely than controls to agree that ecstasy aids weight loss and that they exercise more when they use drugs. However, our findings indicated that women are not using ecstasy as a deliberate means of weight control.