Practitioner eating disorder detection: The influence of health mindset, thin-ideal internalization, orthorexia and gender role.

Abstract

The current study sought to determine what factors inhibited psychologists, naturopaths and fitness instructors from detecting an eating disorder (ED), and the discipline differences across these factors. Participants of the online study were 115 health practitioners who consisted of 35 psychologists, 50 naturopathic and 30 fitness practitioners. A vignette describing a female experiencing a sub-threshold bulimic variant without purging was presented alongside ED mental health literacy items such as assessing one's ability to detect a problem. Additional items examined factors that may inhibit detection, including practitioners' level of: thin-ideal internalization, orthorexia, health or fitness mindset (a newly developed scale measuring health and fitness obsessiveness) and gender role identity. A significant number of naturopaths and fitness instructors (20% and 33.3%, respectively) were found to have elevated orthorexia scores. Similarly, psychologists had the greatest tendency to internalize the thin-ideal (M = 3.60), which was comparable to levels seen in recent research for 20- to 21-year-old females with EDs. The two largest factors inhibiting ED detection were the strength of a health mindset and gender role identity. Practitioners who had higher health mindset scores or who associated with gender identities higher in masculinity traits (ie, either androgynous or masculine gender roles) were more likely to miss detecting an ED. While many present ED studies focus upon assessing and changing client cognitions, this study emphasizes the need for further research regarding training interventions to address practitioner cognitions and gender role biases, which may in turn improve ED detection.