Associations between pathological eating, relational attitudes and satisfaction in romantic relationships.

OBJECTIVE

Women with disordered eating report low satisfaction from romantic relationships. We wished to examine whether this may be explained in part by a restricted or inflated sense of relational entitlement, pathological concern and low authenticity levels.

METHOD

A community sample of 170 women aged 18-60 (M = 24.89 + 6.22), who had experienced a meaningful romantic relationship, completed questionnaires online. These included measures of disordered eating (EDE-Q), sense of relational entitlement (SRE-R), pathological concern (PCQ), relational authenticity (AIRS) and basic relational needs satisfaction (BNSRS). Structural equation model (SEM) was employed to assess the mediating effect of the SRE-R, PCQ and AIRS on the association between ED symptoms and BNSRS.

RESULTS

Participants with high EDE-Q scores tended to score high on inflated and restricted SRE-R, PCQ, AIRS and BNSRS. SRE-R, PCQ and AIRS scores mediated the negative association between EDE-Q and BNSRS scores.

CONCLUSIONS

An imbalanced sense of relational entitlement, pathological concern and inauthenticity seem to underlie the dissatisfaction that women with disordered eating experience from romantic relationships. Since these relational characteristics seem to take a high toll on the intimate relationships, it is important to encourage healthy eating attitudes and assertiveness within romantic relationships, in life and in therapy.

LEVEL OF EVIDENCE

Level III: evidence obtained from well-designed cohort or case-control analytic studies.