In 2023, the Washington Healthy Youth Survey started asking questions about dangerous weight control behavior. The 2025 data showed some minor changes from the last survey, and showed students’ race and gender identity consistently made a difference in their experiences across the questions asked.
The survey has respondents self-identify their gender identity as either Male, Female, Transgender, Questioning or Something else.
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One of the questions related to dangerous weight gain behaviors was: ‘During the past year, did you exercise to lose weight or to keep from gaining weight?’
In King County, about 58% of 10th grade females said they controlled their weight through exercise, compared to just 49% of males.
About 60% of American Indian and Alaskan Native 10th graders said they control their weight through exercise, compared to about 47% of white teens.
Meantime, 25% of 10th grade females said they used fasting to control weight, compared with 17% of males, and more females said they used diet to control their weight than males.
King County 10th graders were also asked: how often do family, friends and peers do or say things about your body or the food that you eat that make you feel bad?
71% of students who identified as transgender said they were made to feel bad. Meantime, 57% of those who identified as female said they’d experienced that, compared with only 38% percent of those who identified as male.
You can explore the data by following this link to the dashboard and selecting the “Dangerous Weight Control Behaviors” topic.
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