The Role of Anxiety on the Experience of Peer Victimization and Eating Disorder Risk

Abstract

This study examined the mediating effect of anxiety and its subtypes on the relation between peer victimization and eating disorder risk and how this mechanism may be contingent on gender. Data were analyzed from 1391 male and female children between the ages of 10 and 14. Measures used include: the Eating Disorder Inventory-3, the School Climate and Bullying Scale, and the Multidimensional Anxiety Scale for Children. It appears that the increase in anxiety associated with being bullied partly explains why peer victimization is related to eating disorder symptoms for the anxiety symptom clusters of physical symptoms, social anxiety symptoms, and separation anxiety symptoms but not for harm avoidance symptoms. This present study further explored the development of eating disorders across genders using moderated mediation analysis, which found gender differences for physical symptoms of anxiety, social anxiety symptoms, and overall anxiety symptoms when such anxiety symptoms were studied as a mediating variable using an exploratory model of moderating mediation (i.e., first- and second-stage moderated mediation). Here, both the effect of peer victimization on these symptoms of anxiety and the effect of these anxiety types on eating disorder symptoms were greater for girls than for boys, while no gender differences were found with harm avoidance and separation anxiety symptoms in this model. This study was the first to identify a significant mediating effect of different types of anxiety symptoms on peer victimization and eating disorder risk as well as ways in which boys and girls appear to be similar with regard to these mechanisms as well as different. Findings highlight the importance of considering interpersonal vulnerabilities of the victim in selecting intervention efforts. In addition to intrapersonal strategies aimed at reducing bystander behavior and increasing assertiveness, school-based interventions for victims of bullying should also assess victims for anxiety and support the development of healthy coping skills.