ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Different body-related behaviours and cognitions (checking, avoidance, comparison, display) have been shown to be related to unhealthy eating attitudes in a non-clinical sample. AIMS: This study tested whether the use of body-related behaviours is higher in eating-disordered women than in non-clinical women. It also examined whether the use of body-related behaviours is associated with psychological characteristics (particularly anxiety, depression and narcissistic characteristics), controlling for age and eating pathology. METHOD: Ninety-nine adult women with diagnosed eating disorders (mean age = 30.4 years, SD = 9.44; mean body mass index = 21.9, SD = 6.39) completed standardized measures of eating pathology, anxiety and depression, narcissistic characteristics, and body-related behaviours and cognitions. RESULTS: The Body-Related Behaviours Scale (BRBS) had acceptable levels of internal consistency in this group, and its scales were only weakly to moderately correlated with each other. There were no differences between diagnostic groups, but the clinical group had higher scores that a previous non-clinical sample on three of the scales. The four body-related behaviours had different patterns of association with eating pathology, depression and narcissistic features. However, anxiety was not associated with BRBS scores. CONCLUSIONS: The findings support the importance of a wide range of body-related behaviours and cognitions in understanding the eating disorders. However, the lack of an association with anxiety is counter to the suggestion that the various behaviours measured by the BRBS reflect safety behaviours on the part of sufferers. Depression and narcissistic features might be more important in maintaining such behaviours.
Subject(s)
Body Dysmorphic Disorders/diagnosis , Body Dysmorphic Disorders/therapy , Cognition Disorders/diagnosis , Cognition Disorders/therapy , Cognitive Behavioral Therapy , Feeding and Eating Disorders/diagnosis , Feeding and Eating Disorders/therapy , Adult , Anorexia Nervosa/diagnosis , Anorexia Nervosa/psychology , Anorexia Nervosa/therapy , Anxiety Disorders/diagnosis , Anxiety Disorders/psychology , Anxiety Disorders/therapy , Body Dysmorphic Disorders/psychology , Body Mass Index , Bulimia Nervosa/diagnosis , Bulimia Nervosa/psychology , Bulimia Nervosa/therapy , Cognition Disorders/psychology , Comorbidity , Depressive Disorder/diagnosis , Depressive Disorder/psychology , Depressive Disorder/therapy , Feeding and Eating Disorders/psychology , Female , Humans , Personality Disorders/diagnosis , Personality Disorders/psychology , Personality Disorders/therapy , Prognosis , Secondary Prevention , Statistics as TopicABSTRACT
The authors conducted 2 studies to examine the stigmatization of the female and male body using photographic stimuli of real people. In the first study, 75 female and 55 male undergraduates rated a series of 50 photographs of women ranging in body mass index (BMI) on 3 items: gets teased, lonely, and lazy. Both male and female observers rated bodies on either side of BMI 19-20 kg/m2 higher for the gets teased and lonely items. For the lazy item, there was a clear pattern of greater stigmatization with increasing BMI. In the second study, 40 male and 40 female observers rated a series of photographs of the male body that varied in BMI and waist-to-chest ratio on the same items. Results showed that men and women judged overweight and more tubular men to be lazier, lonelier, and teased. These findings suggest that body size is an important characteristic to consider when examining body stigmatization among men and women. These results also show support for the beautiful-is-good bias.
