The drive for thinness: Towards a mechanistic understanding of avoidance behaviors in a non-clinical population

Fear of weight gain is a cardinal feature of eating disorders, including Anorexia Nervosa (AN). This fear motivates behaviors aimed at avoiding weight gain, such as restricting food intake. Of note, avoidance in AN is not confined to food-related items but extends to intense emotional states. Despit...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Behaviour research and therapy 2021-07, Vol.142, p.103868-103868, Article 103868
Main Authors: Papalini, S., Beckers, T., Claes, L., Vervliet, B.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Anorexia
Anorexia nervosa
Avoidance
Avoidance behavior
Avoidance learning
Body weight gain
College students
Drive for thinness
Eating disorders
Emotional states
Fear
Fear & phobias
Fear conditioning
Food
Food intake
Relief
Reward
Thinness
Weight gain
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Fear of weight gain is a cardinal feature of eating disorders, including Anorexia Nervosa (AN). This fear motivates behaviors aimed at avoiding weight gain, such as restricting food intake. Of note, avoidance in AN is not confined to food-related items but extends to intense emotional states. Despite the presence of several forms of excessive avoidance in AN, little is known about the mechanisms underpinning avoidance behavior in AN. In the present exploratory study, we investigated whether university students with an elevated desire to avoid weight gain (as measured through self-reported Drive for Thinness, DT) show deficits in generic avoidance learning. Two-hundred and seventy-five female students filled in the Eating Disorder Inventory-II (EDI-II) and performed a food-unrelated avoidance task. Generalized and linear mixed models (GLMM) revealed that students scoring higher on the DT scale of the EDI-II showed more ineffective avoidance, suggesting a tendency for excessive avoidance in at-risk individuals for AN. Similar results might extend to other eating disorders. •DT is associated with rigid and excessive avoidance behavior at a subclinical level.•DT does not relate to relief, and the role of the reward system in excessive avoidance remains unsupported for now.•DT may be directly related to a higher propensity to control negative events.
ISSN:0005-7967
1873-622X
DOI:10.1016/j.brat.2021.103868