Eating Disorders and Psychosocial Factors

Abstract

Eating disorders are not mere abnormalities of appetite and eating behaviors, but severe disorders of eating behaviors based on psychological factors such as excessive attention to body weight and excessive influence of body shape and weight on self-evaluation. Eating disorders are mainly classified as anorexia nervosa (AN) and bulimia nervosa (BN). Regarding AN, there are reports that social appearance anxiety is associated with anorexia nervosa symptomology. In case of BN, studies using momentary assessments show that binges and vomiting episodes are more likely to occur on days with lower positive affect, higher negative affect, anger/hostility and stress. As described above, there are many reports showing that stress including psychosocial factors is related to symptoms and courses of eating disorders. There is no doubt that eating disorders are included in stress-related diseases. In this article, we also introduce data on psychosocial factors of eating disorder patients treated in our hospital and overview the relationship between eating disorders and stress.