Body dissatisfaction is a strong predictor of eating disorder symptomatology: why do many women experience body dissatisfaction but not engage in severe levels of disordered eating?

One way that researchers can contribute to the knowledge for prevention and treatment of eating disorders is to articulate its risk factors. According to meta-analytic review, Body Dissatisfaction (BD) is recognized as the strongest predictor of eating disorders among women. Yet, researchers also have found that BD is not unique to individuals with clinical eating disorders and have even suggested that it is so prevalent among women that it is “normative”. Given that high levels of body dissatisfaction are common among women why are clinical eating disorders relatively rare? It seems reasonable to argue that additional variables interact with body dissatisfaction to influence its relation to eating disorder symptomatology. The present study aimed at identifying how variables interact in the prediction of eating disorder symptomatology, instead of merely identifying correlates of disordered eating. Three theoretically relevant variables were investigated as to whether they moderated this relation within one sample (N=333) of women (Mage = 20.45). As hypothesized, poor impulse regulation, socially prescribed perfectionism and social insecurity intensified the primary body dissatisfaction – eating disorder symptomatology relation. These findings clarify the importance for clinicians to assess these variables in conjunction with body dissatisfaction when exploring their patients’ eating practices and work with their female patients and their social networks to decrease these moderating variables and body dissatisfaction to reduce their eating disorder symptomatology.