Publications by authors named "Rowan A Hunt"

Article Synopsis
  • Eating disorders are serious mental health issues that cause significant suffering, high illness rates, and increased mortality, highlighting the urgent need for scientific advancements in this relatively new field of study.* -
  • The paper focuses on three key areas of research: diversity and inclusion, systemic and social factors, and treatment personalization, all of which have the potential to improve the understanding of eating disorders and enhance treatment outcomes.* -
  • The authors advocate for further research in these areas and outline their vision for the future of the eating disorder field over the next decade, emphasizing the importance of addressing gaps in knowledge.*
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The relationship between negative emotions and avoidance is widely theorized as a bidirectional cycle implicated in a range of psychopathology. Historically, research on this cycle has examined one type of negative emotion: anxiety. Yet, a broader range of internal experiences may be implicated in the maintenance of unhealthy avoidance cycles in psychopathology.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study investigates how feeling fat and fear of weight gain contribute to the symptoms of eating disorders (EDs) and examines their relationships with emotions, thoughts, and behaviors associated with EDs.
  • Conducted with 94 participants, including 64 with anorexia nervosa, the research utilized ecological momentary assessments over 18 days to gather data during stressful times like mealtime.
  • Findings reveal that feeling fat and fear of weight gain can predict negative emotions and behaviors related to ED, while also showing reciprocal relationships, indicating a cyclical pattern that varies by ED diagnosis and suggesting avenues for targeted treatment interventions.
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Appetitive and aversive motivation are prominent in theories of dysregulated behaviors. The authors conducted a meta-analysis of the association between individual differences in appetitive and aversive motivation and several dysregulated behaviors (i.e.

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Eating disorders are severe mental illnesses characterized by the hallmark behaviors of binge eating, restriction, and purging. These disordered eating behaviors carry extreme impairment and medical complications, regardless of eating disorder diagnosis. Despite the importance of these disordered behaviors to every eating disorder diagnosis, our current models are not able to accurately predict behavior occurrence.

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Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is a prevalent psychiatric disorder impacting 10-16% of Americans in their lifetime. Approximately 60% of individuals with MDD have comorbid anxiety disorders. Additionally, although scarce research has examined eating disorders (EDs) in depression, a bidirectional association exists between ED and MDD symptoms.

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Article Synopsis
  • Treatments for eating disorders (EDs) are only effective for about 50% of adults, partly due to the varied nature of these disorders and a lack of evidence-based options for some diagnoses.
  • A trial with 79 participants tested a 10-session personalized treatment approach that utilizes individual symptom data to tailor therapy, showing high feasibility, acceptability, and initial effectiveness in reducing ED severity.
  • Results indicated significant improvements in ED symptoms and related issues, suggesting that this personalized method could serve as a promising alternative to traditional treatments, warranting further research and randomized controlled trials.
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Recent studies have found increasing rates of overweight and obesity in bulimia nervosa (BN). However, the relationships between body mass index (BMI) and BN symptoms and other clinically relevant constructs are unknown. Participants ( = 152 adults with BN) were assigned to three groups by BMI: group with no overweight or obesity (NOW-BN; BMI <25; = 32), group with overweight (OW-BN; BMI ≥25 and <30; = 66), and group with obesity (O-BN; BMI ≥30; = 54).

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The tripartite influence model stipulates that appearance pressures from three sources (family, peers, traditional media) lead adolescent girls to internalize a thin appearance ideal and engage in social appearance comparisons, resulting in body dissatisfaction (Thompson et al., 1999). Social media is a modern source of appearance pressure and, increasingly, adolescent girls desire an appearance that is both thin and muscular.

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Article Synopsis
  • Recent awareness of racial and ethnic disparities has highlighted the need for better diversity, equity, and inclusion in eating disorders research, but there is a lack of empirical data on participant representation.
  • A study reviewed eating disorders research published in 2000, 2010, and 2020, finding that only 45.2% of studies reported race and ethnicity, with U.S. studies being more likely to do so than European studies.
  • Despite an increase in reporting rates over the years, around 70% of participants were White, with minority groups represented at significantly lower rates, indicating a need for more inclusive research practices.
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Article Synopsis
  • * The study examined 102 individuals with EDs, identifying central symptoms at both group and individual levels, with key issues like fear of weight gain and guilt being predictive of ED severity over time.
  • * Findings suggest a need for precision treatments targeting specific symptoms, as individual experiences of these symptoms vary widely, highlighting the importance of both group and individual analysis in understanding and treating EDs effectively.
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Background: Eating disorders (EDs) are severe mental illnesses, with high morbidity, mortality, and societal burden. EDs are extremely heterogenous, and only 50% of patients currently respond to first-line treatments. Personalized and effective treatments for EDs are drastically needed.

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Objective: Binge planning (BP; i.e., preparatory thoughts and actions to facilitate future binge-eating episodes) is hypothesized to distract individuals from negative affect and increase the salience of food.

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Article Synopsis
  • Emotions significantly impact the maintenance of eating disorder (ED) symptoms, but most studies have examined general affect rather than specific emotional states.
  • A study involving 196 individuals with EDs used network analysis to identify key negative and positive emotions related to ED symptoms, revealing that guilt and shame are crucial connectors between these emotional states and ED behaviors.
  • The findings suggest that targeting central emotions like fear and shame in clinical interventions could help break the cycle of negative emotions contributing to ED symptoms, and further research should focus on how these relationships evolve over time.
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Background: Impulsivity and perfectionism are transdiagnostic personality factors that have been studied extensively and shown to relate to externalizing and internalizing pathology respectively. Typically, these personality factors are antithesized, with impulsivity characterized by lack of control and perfectionism characterized by rigid overcontrol.

Methods: The current study (N = 1,353 undergraduate students) used latent profile analysis to identify subgroups based on impulsivity and perfectionism dimensions and tested the relations of these subgroups with the symptomatology of ten prevalent types of psychopathology (depression, worry, social anxiety, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder inattentive subtype, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder impulsive-hyperactive subtype, alcohol use, obsessive-compulsive disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder, restrictive eating pathology, and binge eating pathology).

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Enhanced cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT-E) is one of the primary evidence-based treatments for adults with eating disorders (EDs). However, up to 50% of individuals do not respond to CBT-E, likely because of the high heterogeneity present even within similar diagnoses. This high heterogeneity, especially in regard to presenting pathology, makes it difficult to develop a treatment based "on averages" and for clinicians to accurately pinpoint which symptoms should be targeted in treatment.

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Background: Rumination syndrome (RS) is often treated in medical settings with 1-2 sessions of diaphragmatic breathing to target reflexive abdominal wall contraction in response to conditioned cues (e.g., food).

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Objective: Although current treatments are effective for some patients with eating disorders, a large number of patients remain partially or fully symptomatic post-treatment. This may be related to poor utilization of treatment skills outside of the therapy office. Smartphone applications that can detect and intervene during moments of need could facilitate such skill use between sessions.

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Objective: Eating disorders (EDs) are characterized by significant anxiety during mealtime that contributes to food avoidance and weight loss. Individuals with EDs commonly use avoidance coping (e.g.

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Background: In the past decade, network analysis (NA) has been applied to psychopathology to quantify complex symptom relationships. This statistical technique has demonstrated much promise, as it provides researchers the ability to identify relationships across many symptoms in one model and can identify central symptoms that may predict important clinical outcomes. However, network models are highly influenced by node selection, which could limit the generalizability of findings.

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