SchizophreniaProject

Tattooing and body piercing are linked to bulimia symptoms among adolescents.

The resorting to tattoos and body piecing has gained ground in Western culture, particularly among adolescents, after being confined for a long time to marginal sectors of modern societies.

A recent study carried out by Doctor Antonio Preti and his co-workers in Sardinia, found that tattoos and body piercing are a rather widespread occurrence among Italian adolescents, too. In the investigated sample, including around 1 000 subjects, more males than females admitted the use of tattoos (14.5% vs 5.4%), whereas the reverse was found for body piercing (18.4% vs 21.3%). Tattoos among females, and body piercing in both genders, were statistically associated with eating disorder measures related to bulimia symptoms.

On the whole, the degree of the links between tattoos/body piecing and indicators of psychological distress was modest: tattoos and body piecing, therefore, can be seen as the desire to show the subject’s identity, rather than a marker of psychopathology.

Nevertheless, the resorting to tattoos or body piercing is not a hazard-free practice. Most health professionals’ concerns regard infectious complications, whose hazard was reported to increase in both tattooing and body piercing procedures, including a potentially higher risk of transmitting blood-borne diseases.

Greater health education, concluded Dr Preti and co-workers, is needed in the wake of growing popularity of these body modification practices: adolescents must be helped understand and recognize the risks they face when turning to non-professionals.

Reference:

Antonio Preti, Claudia Pinna, Silvia Nocco, Emanuela Mulliri, Simona Pilia, Donatella Rita Petretto, carmelo Masala.

Body of evidence: Tattoos, body piercing and eating disorder symptoms among adolescents.

Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 2006; 61: 561-566.

Contacts:

Dr Antonio Preti

SchizophreniaProject

www.schizophreniaproject.org

e-mail: apreti@tin.it