Perceptions of disordered eating and associated help seeking in young women

Disordered eating is common among young women, but rates of help-seeking are remarkably low. Studies attempting to understand how disordered eating is perceived by young women have exposed participants to fictional vignettes that describe characters exhibiting eating pathologies, and assessed beliefs about the women's issues. These studies have informed our understanding of how young women perceive disordered eating in other women, but do not address the question of how disordered eating is perceived in oneself. In the present study, we randomly assigned 204 young women (ages 18-25 years) to one of two conditions (self or other). In each condition, participants read a hypothetical vignette in which the main character (the participant herself [self] or another female student [other]) exhibited disordered eating, and answered questions about her behavior and her need for help. Data were analyzed using Pearson correlations, chi square tests, multiple regression analyses, multinomial logistic regressions, and independent samples t-tests. Overall, results supported the existence of a broad discrepancy in how young women perceive disordered eating in themselves versus in other women. Specifically, relative to women who read the vignette about another individual, women who read the vignette about themselves were more likely to attribute their behavior to a general mental health issue (as opposed to an eating disorder); to believe that they were able to cope with their problem alone; and to believe that they did not need to seek help for their eating behaviors (despite perceiving fewer barriers to doing so). These findings highlight the need for empirical research to consider this self-other discrepancy when using findings to inform the development of disordered eating prevention and intervention programs; if not considered, we risk developing programs based on information that may not accurately represent the young women in need of services.