Elsevier

Eating Behaviors

Volume 19, December 2015, Pages 177-180
Eating Behaviors

The relation between Bulimic symptoms and the social withdrawal syndrome during early adolescence

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eatbeh.2015.09.008Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Tested whether social withdrawal promoted Bulimic eating disorder during early adolescence.

  • One hundred and one early adolescents completed standardized scales twice across a 5-month span.

  • Trust Beliefs in Others was negatively correlated with Bulimic symptoms and positively correlated with Loneliness.

  • Changes in Bulimic symptoms were negatively predicted by Trust Beliefs in Others and positively predicted by Loneliness.

  • Bulimia nervosa is promoted by low trust beliefs and loneliness during early adolescence.

Abstract

Objective

The short-term longitudinal study tested the hypothesis that there was a prospective relation between the social withdrawal syndrome and Bulimic symptoms during early adolescence.

Method

Ninety-six adolescents (47 males, mean age = 13 years – 10 months) completed standardized scales assessing Bulimic symptoms, trust beliefs in others and loneliness at Time 1/T1 and again 5 months later at Time 2/T2.

Results

Analyses showed that: (1) Bulimic symptoms were negatively correlated with trust beliefs, (2) Bulimic symptoms were positively correlated with loneliness, and (3) trust beliefs were negatively correlated with loneliness. The SEM and mediation analyses showed that trust beliefs at T1 were negatively and concurrently associated with Bulimic symptoms at T1 and longitudinally (and negatively) predicted changes in Bulimic symptoms. It was found that loneliness at T1 statistically mediated those concurrent and longitudinal relations.

Conclusion

The findings yielded support for the conclusion that the social withdrawal syndrome, as assessed by low trust beliefs and resulting experiences of loneliness, contributes to Bulimia nervosa during early adolescence.

Introduction

Researchers have found that disordered eating (including eating disorders) during adolescence longitudinally predicts internalized maladjustment (Ferreiro, Wichstrøm, Seoane, & Senra, 2014) and low socioeconomic achievement (Tabler & Utz, 2015). Guided by such findings, researchers have undertaken the task of identifying the factors that predispose individuals to acquire disordered eating during the adolescent period (e.g. Abede et al., 2014, Rohde et al., 2015, Stice et al., 2013). The current study was carried out to continue that line of investigation. The study investigated the hypothesis that the social withdrawal syndrome (a tight association of low trust beliefs in close others, low disclosure and high loneliness) predisposes individuals to demonstrate Bulimic symptoms during early adolescence — the period during which Bulimia nervosa is first observed (see Stice et al., 2013).

In an investigation of the SWS hypothesis, Rotenberg, Bharathi, Davies, and Finch (2013) found that Bulimic symptoms in young adults were associated with low trust beliefs in close others (mother, father, and friend), an unwillingness to disclose personal information to them, and high loneliness. The analyses yielded support for the SWS hypothesis that low trust beliefs to close others promote an unwillingness to disclose personal information to close others, which promotes loneliness and Bulimic symptoms. According to the SWS hypothesis, low trust and corresponding loneliness produce an experience of being cut off from others and a negative effect in individuals that reduces their dietary restraint and thus contributes to the cycle of food consumption and control (e.g., dieting, and laxatives) typical of Bulimia nervosa.

The SWS hypothesized causal sequence comprises the following: low trust beliefs in close others → low disclosure → high loneliness  Bulimia. Is this an accurate account of how Bulimia emerges during adolescence? The research has not yet provided an adequate answer to this question. There is evidence that loneliness is longitudinally predictive of disordered eating from early to mid-adolescence adolescence (Abede et al., 2014) but the role of other crucial components of the SWS hypothesis (e.g., trust beliefs) has not been examined. The current study was carried out in order to redress that gap in our knowledge. It was guided by the fact that short-term longitudinal studies (e.g., around 6-months) have successfully examined developmental change, such as risks of medical errors (Tanaka et al., 2012) and the effects of workplace bullying on job satisfaction (Rodríguez-Muñoz, Baillien, De Witte, Moreno-Jiménez, & Pastor, 2009). The current study was a short-term longitudinal investigation of the SWS hypothesis that social withdrawal syndrome contributes to Bulimia as indexed by Bulimic symptoms during early adolescence.

In the study a sample of early adolescents were administered standardized scales assessing Bulimic symptoms, trust beliefs in close others, and loneliness twice across a 5-month span (Time 1/T1 and Time 2/T2). The following was hypothesized based on the social withdrawal syndrome hypothesis:

  • (1)

    Bulimic symptoms would be negatively correlated with trust beliefs in close others and positively correlated with loneliness. These associations would be evident as relations between those variables at T1 in the SEM analysis.

  • (2)

    Loneliness would mediate the relation between trust beliefs in close others and Bulimic symptoms concurrently (i.e., at T1).

  • (3)

    A negative path would be found in the SEM analysis between trust beliefs in close others at T1 and loneliness at T1.

  • (4)

    A positive path would be found in the SEM analysis between loneliness at T1 and changes in Bulimic symptoms.

  • (5)

    A negative relation would be found between trust beliefs in close others and changes in Bulimic symptoms and that relation would be mediated by loneliness at T1.

Bulimia nervosa has been found to be more prevalent in girls than in boys (see Stice et al., 2013) and therefore comparable gender differences were expected on Bulimic symptoms. Whether or not gender moderated the observed relations was examined.

Section snippets

Participants

At T1, the participants were 116 pupils enrolled in years 7 and 8 of a secondary school in the United Kingdom. This school was representative of schools across the UK as determined by the government Index of Multiple Deprivation. Of that sample, 101 (47 males and 54 females) with mean age = 13 years and 10 months (SD = 5 months) were tested at both T1 and T2. Individual t-tests confirmed that there were no appreciable differences between those participants who were tested at both time points and those

Gender differences

As expected, at T1 girls (M = 13.63, SD = 12.18) showed greater Bulimic symptoms than did boys (M = 8.12, SD = 8.79), t(93.8) = 2.52, p = .01; equal variances not assumed. Those differences were in the same direction at T2 with girls (M = 10.77, SD = 11.63) tending to show greater Bulimic symptoms and did boys (M = 7.91, SD = 12.28) but those differences did not attain or approach statistical significance. There were no appreciable gender differences on the other measures.

Correlations between the measures

The correlations between the measures

Summary of the findings

The study yielded support for the SWS hypothesis. At each testing time, it was found that: (1) Bulimic symptoms were negatively correlated with trust beliefs in close others and positively correlated with loneliness, and (2) trust beliefs in close others were negatively correlated with loneliness. The SEM and mediation analyses confirmed that there was a negative relation between trust beliefs at T1 and Bulimic symptoms at T1 and that trust beliefs in close others negatively predicted changes

Authors' disclosure

Statement 1: No funding source was involved in the study design, collection, analysis or interpretation of the data, writing the manuscript, or the decision to submit the paper for publication.

Statement 2: All authors contributed to the manuscript and all have approved its submission. Each author contributed to the research (literature search, design, analyses) described in the final manuscript and to the writing of the manuscript.

Statement 3: There is no conflict of interest.

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