engleski

Role of body mass index, perfectionism, and emotion regulation difficulties in eating disorders

Background: Theoretical models and empirical studies show that difficulties with emotion regulation and perfectionism play significant role in eating disorders (ED), as risk and maintaining factors (e.g. Fairburn et al., 2003 ; Lavender et al., 2015 ; Levinson et al., 2017). Methods: A total of 649 Croatian adolescents (49% girls ; mean age: 15.00) participated in this study. Participants completed self-reported questionnaires assessing difficulties in emotion regulation, perfectionism, and disordered eating, during regular preventive health examinations. Based on the number of ED symptoms reported on the Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire (EDE-Q) participants were divided into two groups: without ED symptoms (reported no or only one symptom) and with ED symptoms (reported two or more symptoms on EDE-Q). Findings: Firstly, results showed that BMI, perfectionism, and difficulties with emotion regulation explain a total of 23.8% variance of ED symptoms. The results of the second set of analyses (logistic regression to predict occurrence of ED symptoms) indicated that an increase of 1 point in perfectionism or difficulties in emotion regulation score, increases the odds of having ED symptoms by 1.52 and 1.54, respectively. Discussion: Even though BMI is an important risk factor for developing ED in adolescents with overweight or obesity, in the general sample of adolescents the role of perfectionism and emotion regulation difficulties was more important. Our results suggest that clinicians and researchers should consider the role of emotion regulation and perfectionism when planning effective treatment and preventive interventions.

emotion regulation, perfectionism, eating disorders symptoms, adolescents

https://2022.ehps.net/program/