Self-Disgust within Eating Disordered Groups: Associations with Anxiety, Disgust Sensitivity and Sensory Processing.

Abstract

This study aimed to assess the relationship between self-disgust and sensory processing within eating psychopathology. Five hundred and ninety-one women with a self-reported diagnosis of anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa or who had no previous history of an eating disorder completed a battery of online questionnaires measuring disgust, emotion and sensory variables. Those with an eating disorder reported significantly higher rates of self-disgust than those with no history of disordered eating. In groups of women with self-reported bulimia, self-disgust was associated with sensation avoidance and sensation seeking. Within the group with anorexia nervosa, self-disgust was associated with low registration and sensation seeking. This report is the first to examine the expression of the emotion self-disgust within eating psychopathology and examine associations of this factor with sensory processing. The emotion self-disgust needs to be further examined to understand its possible role in the onset and maintenance of disordered eating. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and Eating Disorders Association.