Relationships between attitudes towards eating disorders and mood.

Area of Science:

• Sports Psychology
• Clinical Psychology
• Eating Disorder Research

Background:

• Disordered eating attitudes are a concern in athletic populations.
• The interplay between mood states and disordered eating requires further investigation.
• Understanding potential gender differences in these relationships is crucial.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if gender moderates the relationship between mood and attitudes toward eating disorders among athletes.
• To analyze the predictive power of mood states on disordered eating attitudes in male and female athletes.
• To identify specific mood states most strongly associated with disordered eating attitudes.

Main Methods:

• A sample of 165 athletes (99 males, 66 females) completed the Eating Attitudes Test (EAT), Profile of Mood States-A (POMS-A), and Hospital Anxiety Depression Scale (HADS).
• Multisample structural equation modeling was employed to test for gender moderation effects.
• Equality constraints were applied to examine mood-EAT score relationships across genders.

Main Results:

• Gender did not significantly moderate the relationship between mood states and eating attitudes (CFI = .988).
• Mood states explained 38% of the variance in EAT scores for males and 29% for females.
• Depressed mood demonstrated the strongest association with disordered eating attitudes in both genders.

Conclusions:

• Mood profiling is valuable in applied settings for athletes.
• Negative mood, particularly depression, may mask underlying disordered eating attitudes.
• Further research, including interviews, is recommended to explore the causes of depressed mood and the nature of disordered eating in athletes.