The mediating role of rumination in the relation between attentional bias towards thin female bodies and eating disorder symptomatology.

Martin J Tovée,Jason Bell,Romina Palermo,Elizabeth Rieger,Laura Dondzilo,Susan Byrne

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0177870

Abstract

The present study sought to investigate the association between selective attentional processing of body images, rumination, and eating disorder symptoms in young women. Seventy-three undergraduate female students (ages 17–24) completed a modified dot-probe task to assess whether young women showed a differential attentional bias pattern towards thin and non-thin female bodies. Participants also completed self-report measures of eating disorder pathology. It was found that increased reports of dietary restraint and body dissatisfaction were associated with both greater attentional bias towards thin bodies and avoidance of non-thin bodies (as compared to neutral images), although the former relationship was stronger than the latter. The results suggest attentional vigilance to thin-ideal images plays a greater role in the potential development and/or maintenance of eating disorder symptoms, at least in a university sample of young women. Results also revealed that eating disorder-specific rumination mediated the relationship between attentional bias to thin ideal images and eating disorder symptoms. These findings build on existing research and theories, for example the impaired disengagement model of rumination, and have potential clinical applications such as specifically targeting ruminative and/or attentional processes in the prevention and/or treatment of eating disorder symptoms.

Highlights

Exposure to advertisements glorifying the thin-ideal female body shape is pervasive
Since the attentional bias difference scores reflect the degree to which attention selectively moved to the location of thin/non-thin body images, compared to abstract art images, a value which differs significantly from zero is indicative of a meaningful attentional bias
The current study was the first to show that eating disorder-specific rumination mediated the relationship between attentional bias to thin-ideal imagery and the specific eating disorder symptoms of body dissatisfaction and dietary restraint in a university sample of young women. These findings extend the literature demonstrating an association between depressive rumination and valence-specific attentional bias [28,30,32] to different types of rumination, namely, eating disorder-specific rumination

Summary

Introduction

A metaanalysis of experimental and correlational studies revealed that media exposure to the thinideal is related to women’s vulnerability to body image disturbances and disordered eating behaviour [1]. Research has shown that women dissatisfied with their own bodies are susceptible to negative affect and disordered eating after viewing thinideal stimuli [2,3,4]. Those with an attentional bias towards thin-ideal imagery may be especially. Theoretical and empirical evidence suggests that attentional biases towards body shape-related information, such as via thin-ideal media, may play an important role in the development and/or maintenance of eating disorder symptoms. In accordance with the transdiagnostic cognitive behavioural theory of eating disorders [5], these biases are hypothesised to arise from a dysfunctional scheme for self-evaluation that centres on the over-evaluation of eating, shape and weight and their control

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Conclusion