Eating disorder features and quality of life: Does gender matter?

This study examined whether gender moderates the associations between eating disorder features and quality-of-life impairment and whether eating disorder features can explain gender differences in quality of life in a sample of undergraduate students.

Gender was a significant predictor of mental HRQoL, such that women in this sample reported poorer mental HRQoL than men. Eating disorder cognitions were the strongest predictor of undergraduate students’ mental and physical HRQoL, while binge eating negatively predicted their physical HRQoL only. Gender was not found to moderate the associations between eating disorder features and HRQoL, and eating disorder cognitions were found to mediate the association between gender and mental HRQoL such that a proportion of the difference between undergraduate men and women’s mental HRQoL was attributable to eating disorder cognitions.

This study provided further evidence of the significant impact of eating disorder features, particularly eating disorder cognitions, on HRQoL. The finding that gender did not moderate the relationships between eating disorder features and HRQoL indicates the importance of investigating these features in both men and women in future research.