a Department of Psychology , University of Windsor , Windsor , Ontario , Canada.
Eat Disord. 2018 Mar-Apr;26(2):107-126. doi: 10.1080/10640266.2017.1318624. Epub 2017 Apr 27.
Disordered eating is common among young women, but rates of help-seeking are remarkably low. Studies attempting to understand how disordered eating is perceived by young women have exposed participants to fictional vignettes that describe characters exhibiting eating pathologies, and assessed beliefs about the women's issues. These studies have informed our understanding of how young women perceive disordered eating in other women, but do not address the question of how disordered eating is perceived in oneself. In the present study, we randomly assigned 204 young women (ages 18-25 years) to one of two conditions (self or other). In each condition, participants read a hypothetical vignette in which the main character (the participant herself [self] or another female student [other]) exhibited disordered eating, and answered questions about her behavior and her need for help. Data were analyzed using Pearson correlations, chi square tests, multiple regression analyses, multinomial logistic regressions, and independent samples t-tests. Overall, results supported the existence of a broad discrepancy in how young women perceive disordered eating in themselves versus in other women. Specifically, relative to women who read the vignette about another individual, women who read the vignette about themselves were more likely to attribute their behavior to a general mental health issue (as opposed to an eating disorder); to believe that they were able to cope with their problem alone; and to believe that they did not need to seek help for their eating behaviors (despite perceiving fewer barriers to doing so). These findings highlight the need for empirical research to consider this self-other discrepancy when using findings to inform the development of disordered eating prevention and intervention programs; if not considered, we risk developing programs based on information that may not accurately represent the young women in need of services.
饮食失调在年轻女性中很常见，但寻求帮助的比例却低得惊人。试图了解年轻女性如何感知饮食失调的研究让参与者接触到描述表现出饮食病理学特征的虚构情景，并评估他们对女性问题的看法。这些研究使我们了解了年轻女性如何看待其他女性的饮食失调，但并没有解决如何看待自己的饮食失调问题。在本研究中，我们随机分配了 204 名 18-25 岁的年轻女性（年龄）到两种情况（自身或他人）之一。在每种情况下，参与者阅读一个假设的情景，其中主要角色（参与者自己[自身]或另一名女学生[他人]）表现出饮食失调，并回答关于她的行为和她对帮助的需求的问题。使用 Pearson 相关系数、卡方检验、多元回归分析、多项逻辑回归和独立样本 t 检验分析数据。总的来说，结果支持年轻女性在自身和他人中感知饮食失调存在广泛差异的观点。具体来说，与阅读关于另一个人的情景的女性相比，阅读关于自己的情景的女性更有可能将自己的行为归因于一般心理健康问题（而不是饮食障碍）；认为自己能够独自应对自己的问题；并且认为自己不需要为自己的饮食行为寻求帮助（尽管她们认为寻求帮助的障碍较少）。这些发现强调了在使用研究结果为饮食失调预防和干预计划的制定提供信息时，需要考虑这种自我与他人的差异；如果不考虑，我们可能会根据可能无法准确代表需要服务的年轻女性的信息来开发计划。
