Predicting onset and maintenance of men's eating disorders

Abstract

Background/Objective: Eating disorders (EDs) represent serious yet understudied mental health issues, particularly amongst young adult men attending colleges, who are at the average age of onset. Despite this and recent evidence that in young adult men the core ED symptoms are prevalent and remain relatively stable over the college period, little is known about factors associated with both the onset and maintenance of diagnosable EDs in this population. This work sought to address these research gaps. Method: Logistic regression analyses were conducted using data from an on-going longitudinal study of eating and mental health issues to examine the influence of theoretically relevant factors in predicting the onset and maintenance of men's (DSM-5) EDs at 4-year follow-up (N=2,507). Results: Body dissatisfaction, self-objectification, appearance-ideal internalization, dieting, and negative affectivity were all predictors of ED onset and maintenance. Self-objectification was the largest contributor to both ED onset and maintenance. Conclusions: The findings highlight potentially similar psychosocial foci for prevention and treatment efforts. Implications for improving existing preventive and treatment approaches are discussed.