Eating attitudes and personality variables in a nonclinical sample
1986
Pumariega, A.J. | LaBarbera, J.D.
Extract: The present study examined the relation of certain personality variables to eating attitudes in a nonclinical group of 119 females age 16-18 years who were recruited from two large urban high schools. The personality variables included Perfectionism, Orderliness, Achievement Orientation, Separation Difficulties, Body Image, and Sexual Inhibition. Items for Orderlines and Achievement were taken directly from the California Personality Inventory; those for the other scales were clinically derived. Final forms of the scales were determined by item analyses. Attitudes toward eating were measured by The Eating Attitudes Test, a 40-item rating scale that has been previously utilized in studies of eating disorders. In addition to overall scores on this instrument, factor analyses yielded six clusters of items for which each subject received a score: Weight anxiety, Eating anxiety, Dieting, Social pressure to eat, Dislike of food, and Somatic symptoms. An interesting and coherent pattern of results emerged when correlational analyses were performed on the personality scales and the EAT clusters. For instance, Perfectionism was significantly associated with Weight anxiety, and Sexual Inhibition was significantly correlated with Eating anxiety. The findings are discussed with reference to confusion in the eating disorders literature on the distinction between perfectionism and obsessive-compulsive traits. They are relevant also to the prevailing view of anorexia nervosa as a perfectionistic pursuit of thinness. Our results suggest that conflict about the eating function may also be operative--a finding that is reminiscent of the position of early psychoanalytic writers.(author)
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