The boundary conditions by which body-esteem leads to eating disorders risk among adolescents

Adolescents are believed to be susceptible to eating disorders (EDs) due to their serious fear of appearance evaluation from society. Related to this, low body-esteem has been found to be common among individuals with EDs. The present study mainly aimed to explore how emotional intelligence (EI), gender, and body size influence the relationship between body-esteem and EDs risk among adolescents. 128 middle school students classified as obese and 128 age-and gender-matched normal weight controls were included. All participants were asked to fill out self-report measures of body-esteem, EI, and EDs risk. The results showed that (1) both gender and body size directly influenced body-esteem and EDs risk; (2) EI acted as a moderator between body-esteem and EDs risk; and (3) both gender and body size interacted with EI and body-esteem to influence EDs risk. These findings contribute to our understanding of boundary conditions by which low body-esteem leads to EDs among adolescents, and help us to correspondingly conduct targeted intervention of adolescents' EDs.