Eating disorders risk and body shape concerns among medical students in Jordan: a cross-sectional study.

Introduction: Eating disorders are serious, multi-systemic and chronic disturbances in eating behavior among young people. Body image dissatisfaction is a known risk for developing eating disorders; therefore, this study aims to explore the proportion of participants screening-positive for elevated eating disorder risk among medical students in Jordan and their relationship with associated factors including body shape concerns. Methods: A cross-sectional study that used an online survey to collect the data for 402 undergraduate medical students (117 males; 285 females) from six public universities in Jordan. The surveying tool included a sociodemographic section, Eating Attitudes Test (EAT-26), and Body Shape Questionnaire (BSQ-16B). IBM SPSS Statistics (version 27) was used for descriptive statistics, multivariate analysis and logistic regression to identify the factors associated with the increased risk of eating disorders. Results: Female students had higher mean EAT-26 scores compared to males ( Conclusion: This study revealed that a considerable proportion of medical students in Jordan were screening-positive for elevated eating disorder risk. The strongest associated factors were female gender, higher BMI, rapid weight loss, use of diet pills or laxatives, and a history of psychiatric illness, with a strong correlation observed between eating-disorder risk and body shape concerns. These findings highlight the need for further research and targeted preventive strategies to support the mental and physical wellness of medical students.