ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: To determine the frequency and intensity of bulimic symptoms related to psychosocial impairment and health care utilization. METHOD: Females (N = 1231, M age = 17.7, range 13-55) from four community-recruited samples varying in bulimic pathology completed the eating disorder examination, social adjustment scale, and health survey utilization scale. RESULTS: Co-occurrence of binge eating and compensatory behaviors and solely compensatory behaviors >or=1 time/month were associated with elevations in psychosocial impairment. Co-occurrence of both binge eating and compensatory behaviors and solely compensatory behaviors >or=8 times/month were related to greater service utilization. Solely binge eating and duration of bulimic behaviors were unrelated to these functional outcomes. Overvaluation of body shape and weight showed significant linear relations to the functional outcomes. CONCLUSION: Results suggest that current diagnostic thresholds for bulimia nervosa may be too high when considering functional impairment and service utilization and that different cut-points need to be considered for different bulimic symptoms.
Subject(s)
Bulimia Nervosa/epidemiology , Bulimia Nervosa/therapy , Community Health Services/statistics & numerical data , Interpersonal Relations , Social Behavior , Adolescent , Adult , Female , Humans , Incidence , Middle Aged , Psychology , Surveys and Questionnaires , Texas/epidemiologyABSTRACT
The study was designed to examine the relations between negative affect, coping, and emotional eating. It was tested whether emotion-oriented coping and avoidance distraction, alone or in interaction with negative affect, were related to increased levels of emotional eating. Participants were 125 eating-disordered women and 132 women representing a community population. Measures included the Positive and Negative Affectivity Schedule (PANAS), the Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations (CISS), and the Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire (DEBQ). Both emotion-oriented coping and avoidance distraction were related to emotional eating, while controlling for levels of negative affect. Negative affect did not have a unique contribution to emotional eating over and above emotion-oriented coping or avoidance distraction. The findings suggest that emotional eating is related to reliance on emotion-oriented coping and avoidance distraction in eating-disordered women as well as in relatively healthy women.
Subject(s)
Adaptation, Psychological , Affect , Eating/psychology , Feeding and Eating Disorders/psychology , Adult , Case-Control Studies , Feeding and Eating Disorders/etiology , Female , Humans , Internal-External Control , Netherlands , Stress, Psychological , Surveys and QuestionnairesABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: Temporal relations between dietary restraint, depressive symptoms, and binge eating were tested by means of three competing models positing that (1) dietary restraint and depressive symptoms predict future increases in binge eating, (2) binge eating predicts future increases in dietary restraint and depressive symptoms, and (3) binge eating is reciprocally related to these two factors. METHOD: Longitudinal data from a community sample of Dutch females (N = 143; M age = 19.6) was used to test these relations while controlling for initial levels of these factors. RESULTS: Dietary restraint did not predict future increases in binge eating, nor did binge eating predict future increases in dietary restraint. Depressive symptoms predicted future increases in binge eating, but binge eating did not predict future increases in depressive symptoms. CONCLUSION: Although this study had limited statistical power, the pattern of relations and effect sizes suggest that depressive symptoms, but not dietary restraint, increase risk of binge eating for late adolescent females.
Subject(s)
Bulimia Nervosa/epidemiology , Depression/diagnosis , Depression/epidemiology , Feeding Behavior , Self Efficacy , Adolescent , Adult , Bulimia Nervosa/diagnosis , Bulimia Nervosa/psychology , Depression/psychology , Female , Follow-Up Studies , Humans , Prospective Studies , Severity of Illness Index , Surveys and QuestionnairesABSTRACT
This study investigated the associations of appearance orientation and eating disorder symptoms with internal body awareness in an eating-disordered group of women and a general sample of women. In the eating-disordered group, appearance orientation was positively associated with internal body awareness. Eating disorders symptoms were negatively related to the awareness of bodily signals. No significant associations were found in the general sample of women. The results indicate that in eating-disordered individuals preoccupation with the body and eating-disordered behaviors are not only negatively associated with hunger, but with awareness of other bodily signals as well.
