[ role of anxiety and alexithymia in predicting disordered eating behaviors among students: implication for health promotion]

Introduction: Disordered eating behaviors due to their relationship with adverse physical and psychological outcomes have become a main concern in public health. The previous studies have shown anxious mood and alexithymia are related with adverse medical and psychological disorders including gastrointestinal disorders and eating disorders

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Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the role of anxiety and alexithymia in predicting disordered eating behaviors among student

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Method: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 477 student of Allameh Tabataba'i University who was selected by multiple cluster sampling. Participants responded to the questionnaires of demographic characteristics, anxiety of Costello and Comrey [1967], Twenty-item Toronto Alexithymia and disordered eating behaviors of Garner and colleagues [1982]. Data were analyzed using Pearson correlation coefficient and stepwise regression

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Results: Results showed that there was significant internal correlation among anxiety, alexithymia and disordered eating behaviors [p<0.01]. Also, stepwise regression analysis indicated that anxiety and alexithymia significantly predicted, respectively, 40% and 29% of the variance of disordered eating behaviors [p<0.01]

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Conclusion: This study results suggest the importance of anxiety and alexithymia in predicting disordered eating behaviors and these factors can explain the high degree of variance of this behaviors