Relationships among borderline features, body dissatisfaction and bulimic symptoms in nonclinical females.

The present study evaluated the utility of combining measures of body dissatisfaction and borderline personality features in screening high-school girls who may be at risk for bulimia nervosa. Two samples (777 high-school girls and 22 bulimic women in-treatment) completed scales assessing borderline traits, body dissatisfaction, eating symptoms, and associated psychiatric disturbances. Students were divided into four groups, respectively showing: (a) high body dissatisfaction and borderline traits, (b) high body dissatisfaction alone, (c) high borderline traits alone, or (d) neither vulnerability component. Clinical and nonclinical groups were then compared for severity of eating and psychiatric symptoms. Girls displaying the combination of high body dissatisfaction and borderline traits (our presumed "high-risk" group) showed an elevated profile of eating and associated disturbances, highly comparable to the bulimic group. They were also more likely to receive threshold and subthreshold diagnoses of bulimia nervosa (according to simulated diagnoses based on self-report items) than subjects in other high-school groups. Implications of these findings were discussed with reference to the "two-component" model of eating disorders.