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Indicators of clinical significance among women in the community with binge‐eating disorder symptoms: Delineating the roles of binge frequency, body mass index, and overvaluation
Author(s) -
Mitchison Deborah,
Rieger Elizabeth,
Harrison Carmel,
Murray Stuart B.,
Griffiths Scott,
Mond Jonathan
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
international journal of eating disorders
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.785
H-Index - 138
eISSN - 1098-108X
pISSN - 0276-3478
DOI - 10.1002/eat.22812
Subject(s) - distress , body mass index , psychology , binge eating disorder , binge eating , clinical psychology , eating disorders , psychiatry , bulimia nervosa , medicine
Objective This study aimed to investigate the relative contributions of binge eating, body image disturbance, and body mass index (BMI) to distress and disability in binge‐eating disorder (BED). Method A community sample of 174 women with BED‐type symptomatology provided demographic, weight, and height information, and completed measures of overvaluation of weight/shape and binge eating, general psychological distress and impairment in role functioning. Correlation and regression analyses examined the associations between predictors (binge eating, overvaluation, BMI), and outcomes (distress, functional impairment). Results Binge eating and overvaluation were moderately to strongly correlated with distress and functional impairment, whereas BMI was not correlated with distress and only weakly correlated with functional impairment. Regression analysis indicated that both overvaluation and binge eating were strong and unique predictors of both distress and impairment, the contribution of overvaluation to variance in functional impairment being particularly strong, whereas BMI did not uniquely predict functional impairment or distress. Discussion The findings support the inclusion of overvaluation as a diagnostic criterion or specifier in BED and the need to focus on body image disturbance in treatment and public health efforts in order to reduce the individual and community health burden of this condition.