An online survey conducted by SELF Magazine and the University of North Carolina’s School of Medicine released Tuesday asserts that 65 percent of American Women, ages 25 to 45, display disordered eating behaviors, while 10 percent report symptoms of eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia nervosa or binge eating disorder.

The survey also found that 75 percent of the 4,023 women answering questions about their food habits, eat, think, and behave abnormally around food.

Researchers tried to single out any racial or ethnic background of the problem but revealed relative multicultural equality of participants with eating disorders.

“Our survey found that these behaviors cut across racial and ethnic lines and are not limited to any one group. Women who identified their ethnic backgrounds as Hispanic or Latina, white, black or African American and Asian were all represented among the women who reported unhealthy eating behaviors,” Cynthia R. Bulik, a professor of eating disorders and director of the UNC Eating Disorders Program, said in a prepared statement, according to the Washington Post.

However researchers got very surprising findings connected with unhealthy purging activities.

“What we found most surprising was the unexpectedly high number of women who engage in unhealthy purging activities. More than 31 percent of women in the survey reported that in an attempt to lose weight, they had induced vomiting or had taken laxatives, diuretics or diet pills at some point in their lives. Among these women, more than 50 percent engaged in purging activities at least a few times a week, and many did so every day,” Bulik said.

Skipping meals, smoking to stay slim, extreme attention to calorie counting and avoiding carbohydrates are common among the disordered eating behaviors the women reported.

The survey also discovered: 1.) 67 percent of women are trying to lose weight; 2.) 53 percent of dieters are already at a healthy weight and are still trying to lose weight; 3.) 39 percent of women say concerns about what they eat or weigh interfere with their happiness; 4.) 37 percent regularly skip meals to try to lose weight; 5.) 26 percent cut out entire food group; 6.) 13 percent smoke to lose weight.

Bulik will present the survey findings next month at the Academy for Eating Disorder’ 2008 International Conference on Eating Disorders in Seattle. They will also be published in the May issue of SELF Magazine.