Body-Image Discrepancy and Disordered Eating in Children Aged 10-12: The Roles of Gender, BMI, and Thinness-Related...

Early manifestations of body dissatisfaction and subclinical disordered eating are increasingly recognized as important correlates of later disordered eating, underscoring the need for research in preadolescent populations. This study examined the prevalence of disordered eating risk and tested whether body-figure discrepancy and thinness-related attribution patterns were associated with disordered-eating symptomatology beyond gender and BMI among children aged 10-12 years.

A total of 227 children completed the Children's Eating Attitudes Test-26 (ChEAT-26), body-figure silhouette measures, and assessments of thinness-related social-emotional, negative, and competence attributions.

Overall, 16.3% of participants scored at or above the clinical cutoff for elevated eating-pathology risk, with no significant gender differences. Hierarchical regression analyses showed that the discrepancy between perceived and ideal body figure was significantly associated with disordered eating severity, although the proportion of explained variance was modest. Logistic regression further indicated that each unit increase in body-figure discrepancy was associated with a 37% increase in the likelihood of exceeding the clinical risk threshold. In contrast, thinness-related attribution indices were intercorrelated but were not significantly associated with disordered eating, nor were their effects moderated by gender.

These findings indicate that body-image discrepancy is associated with disordered eating in late childhood, at a stage when marked gender differences are not yet evident. Although causal inferences cannot be drawn, the presence of clinically elevated symptom levels and the observed associations highlight the potential importance of early attention to body dissatisfaction in preventive efforts.