Year: 2021
Type: conference-paper
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Introduction. Adolescence is the most critical life period for the development of eating disorder (ED) symptomatology. For adolescents, and especially for girls, the combination of weight gain and being confronted with daily images of “perfect” thin and slender bodies can become highly distressing and may result in a drive for thinness and disturbed eating behaviors. Adolescents who experience greater identity confusion seem particularly susceptible to internalize such elusive beauty ideals and to experience body dissatisfaction. Finally, in adolescence, the heightened experience of negative affect is not yet met by fully matured emotion regulation capacities, resulting in an increase of maladaptive strategies. Some may turn to dieting, binge eating, and purging behavior. Although problems in identity functioning and emotion dysregulation have been proven important risk and maintaining factors of ED symptomatology, they have never been integrated in a longitudinal study. Methods. The present study is part of the Longitudinal Identity research in Adolescence (LIA)-study and aimed to uncover the temporal interplay between identity functioning, cognitive emotion regulation, and ED symptomatology in adolescence. A total of 2162 community adolescents (Time 1: 54% female; Mage=14.58, SD=1.88, range=10-21 years) participated at three measurement points with one-year intervals (January-February 2018, January-February 2019, and January-February 2020, respectively). They reported on identity functioning (identity synthesis and identity confusion; EPSI), cognitive emotion regulation (rumination, catastrophizing, and positive reappraisal; CERQ-short), and ED symptomatology (drive for thinness and bulimia symptoms; EDI-3). Results. Significant gender differences were found with girls experiencing more identity confusion, ED symptomatology, rumination, and catastrophizing, while reporting less identity synthesis and positive reappraisal than boys. Figure 1 represents the final model based on all cross-lagged results, which could be fixed for boys and girls. The results showed bidirectional associations between both dimensions of identity functioning and rumination and catastrophizing over time. Similarly, these maladaptive emotion regulation strategies were bidirectionally related to bulimia symptoms over time. Finally, indirect pathways pointed to bidirectional associations between identity functioning and bulimia symptoms through rumination and catastrophizing. Only unidirectional associations emerged from identity functioning and emotion dysregulation to drive for thinness and almost no cross-lagged associations were found with positive reappraisal. Conclusion. The present study demonstrates that identity confusion may contribute to the development of ED symptomatology in adolescence through cognitive emotion dysregulation. ED prevention programs should target a healthy identity development in which individuals learn to develop other sources of self-esteem than their appearance and body image. Individuals could learn to integrate various self-aspects to experience oneself as a coherent whole and explore personal interests, values, and talents. Similarly, it is crucial to learn adolescents to handle negative emotions and events in an adaptive way, as results showed that rumination and catastrophizing predict an increase in ED symptomatology over time. Finally, especially bulimic behavior seems to hamper identity functioning through the development of maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies. In youth who present with ED symptoms, intervention purposes may be especially helpful when they focus on the emotion regulatory function of bulimic behavior.
Source: Lirias
Authors: Verschueren, Margaux, Claes, Laurence, Palmeroni, nina, Raemen, leni, Buelens, tinne, Moons, philip, Luyckx, koen
Language: English
Subfield: Clinical Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7029285569