Community norms for the Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire (EDE-Q) among transgender men and women

Transgender men and women may be at risk for eating disorders, but prior community norms of the Eating Disorders Examination Questionnaire (EDE-Q) are based on presumed cisgender men and woman and have not intentionally included transgender people. The objective of this study was to develop community norms for eating disorder attitudes and disordered eating behaviors in transgender men and women using the EDE-Q. Participants were 312 transgender men and 172 transgender women participants in The PRIDE Study, an existing cohort study of sexual and gender minority people. We present mean scores, standard deviations, and percentile ranks for the Global score and four subscale scores of the EDE-Q in transgender men and women. Transgender men and women reported any occurrence (>= 1/week) of dietary restraint (25.0% and 27.9%), objective binge episodes (11.2% and 12.8%), excessive exercise (8.0% and 8.1%), self-induced vomiting (1.6% and 1.7%), and laxative misuse (.3% and .6%), respectively. Compared to a prior study of presumed cisgender men 18-26 years (Lavender, De Young, & Anderson, 2010), our age-matched subsample of transgender men reported lower rates of objective binge episodes and excessive exercise. Compared to a prior study of presumed cisgender women 18-42 years (Mond, Hay, Rodgers, & Owen, 2006), we found that an age-matched sample of transgender women reported higher rates of dietary restraint but lower rates of excessive exercise. These norms should aid clinicians in applying and researchers in investigating and interpreting the EDE-Q scores of transgender men and women.