Personality Variables and Eating Pathology.

Personality variables have long been implicated in the onset and maintenance of eating disorders, as well as in symptom divergence between anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. Clinical observations are broadly supported by the data, with restricting anorexia nervosa associated with higher levels of constraint and Persistence, and binge-purge behaviors linked to the tendency to take impulsive action when emotionally distressed. Considerable heterogeneity is found within diagnostic categories, however, suggesting that different personality structures may predispose individuals to develop disordered eating through alternative pathways.

Psychological treatment of eating disorders.

Significant progress has been achieved in the development and evaluation of evidence-based psychological treatments for eating disorders over the past 25 years. Cognitive behavioral therapy is currently the treatment of choice for bulimia nervosa and binge-eating disorder, and existing evidence supports the use of a specific form of family therapy for adolescents with anorexia nervosa. Important challenges remain.

Difficulties in the assessment of personality traits and disorders in eating-disordered individuals.

There are compelling reasons to examine personality variables in the eating disorder (ED) field but many impediments to the collection of useful data. In addition to the conceptual and methodological difficulties associated with personality assessment in the general case, the EDs present a number of special problems. These include patients' young age at onset and evaluation, the "state" effects of semi-starvation and chaotic eating, denial and distortion in self-report, the instability of ED subtypes, and the intrusion of eating and weight concerns into a wide range of apparently unrelated domains.

Feared food in dieting and non-dieting young women: a preliminary validation of the Food Phobia Survey.

The Food Phobia Survey (FPS) is a recently developed clinical instrument designed to identify foods that are avoided out of fear or guilt by eating disordered individuals. The measure has potential utility in clinical settings for several purposes: the assessment of current food selection and food-related concerns; the construction of individual hierarchies for graded exposure; and the evaluation of treatment outcomes with reference to fear and avoidance of food items. It is comprised of 180 commonly eaten foods rated on three dimensions: fear/guilt, appeal in the absence of weight concern, and frequency of consumption.

Report of the National Institutes of Health workshop on overcoming barriers to treatment research in anorexia nervosa.

Objective: Anorexia nervosa (AN) is associated with serious medical morbidity and has the highest mortality rate of all psychiatric disorders. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Workshop on Overcoming Barriers to Treatment Research in Anorexia Nervosa convened on September 26-27, 2002 to address the dearth of treatment research in this area. The goals of this workshop were to discuss the stages of illness and illness severity, pharmacologic interventions, psychological interventions, and methodologic considerations.