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Introduction: Body shaming (BS) is a growing phenomenon within the school context, especially among adolescents. Recently, it has been described as an unrepeated act in which a person expresses unsolicited, mostly negative comments about an individual’s body. The targeted person perceives these comments as negative, offensive or body shame-inducing. Empirical evidence also suggests that body weight is the most common reason that youths are teased and bullied. Indeed, weight stigma, described as bias or discriminatory behaviors, attitudes, feelings, and thinking about individuals, because of their weight, can lead to weight-based discrimination and victimization. Preliminary evidence suggests that BS and weight stigma have negative effects on psychological health both in the short and long term. In the delicate stage of adolescence development and pubertal maturation, BS experiences can be highly prevalent and it can lead to adverse outcomes such as eating disorders (ED). However, prevalence data in the Italian context are still lacking. Methods: The study aims to estimate weight-related BS perceived by different sources (i.e., peers and family members) and their associations with public and internalized weight bias, body mass index (BMI), body dissatisfaction, and ED symptoms. A sample of 919 high school students (Mage = 15.97, SD = 1.58; 57.1% boys) completed a battery of self-report questionnaires assessing these variables. Results: One in four students reported experiences of weight-related BS by peers or family members. A total of 37% reported having at least one BS experience in a lifetime. Higher scores of ED symptoms, body dissatisfaction, and weight bias were reported by adolescents who experienced BS, especially females. Among overweight participants, results showed that internalized weight bias partially mediated the relationship between BS by family members and ED symptoms and fully mediated the relationship between BS by peers and ED symptoms, after controlling for age, sex and BMI. Discussion: These findings, despite their cross-sectional nature, add an important contribution to the creation of quantitative empirical evidence on the phenomenon of BS. Its role in explaining eating disorders, both alone and with the mediation of internalized weight stigma has been first proved and needs to be confirmed by longitudinal results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The clinical significance of two major aspects of perfectionism, perfectionistic strivings (PS) and perfectionistic concerns (PC), in eating disorders (EDs) symptoms was well‐established among adults. However, no systematic review has assessed evidence examining associations between both unidimensional and multidimensional perfectionism and EDs in early and middle adolescence. For this aim, three online databases (PsycINFO, Medline and PsycArticle) were searched for articles published until January 2019, and observational studies were considered. Study quality was systematically appraised, and results were summarized using a narrative synthesis approach. Fifty‐one cross‐sectional and 28 longitudinal studies were included. Most studies supported the relationship between perfectionism and EDs, with the majority adopting a unidimensional approach for assessing perfectionism. Among studies that employed multidimensional measures of perfectionism, the majority (n = 11) of evidence supported the relationship between eating symptoms and PC, while fewer (n = 5) studies provided significant unique associations with PS. These findings are consistent with the body of research suggesting the strength of the relationship between PC and EDs was greater than between PS and EDs. It was recommended that preventive interventions should be primarily focused on reducing self‐critical perfectionism, since it resulted to be the most relevant perfectionistic dimension in the development of eating symptoms in adolescents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current COVID‐19 pandemic has created a global context likely to increase eating disorder (ED) risk and symptoms, decrease factors that protect against EDs, and exacerbate barriers to care. Three pathways exist by which this pandemic may exacerbate ED risk. One, the disruptions to daily routines and constraints to outdoor activities may increase weight and shape concerns, and negatively impact eating, exercise, and sleeping patterns, which may in turn increase ED risk and symptoms. Relatedly, the pandemic and accompanying social restrictions may deprive individuals of social support and adaptive coping strategies, thereby potentially elevating ED risk and symptoms by removing protective factors. Two, increased exposure to ED‐specific or anxiety‐provoking media, as well as increased reliance on video conferencing, may increase ED risk and symptoms. Three, fears of contagion may increase ED symptoms specifically related to health concerns, or by the pursuit of restrictive diets focused on increasing immunity. In addition, elevated rates of stress and negative affect due to the pandemic and social isolation may also contribute to increasing risk. Evaluating and assessing these factors are key to better understanding the impact of the pandemic on ED risk and recovery and to inform resource dissemination and targets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The present paper describes two studies designed to evaluate the construct and the predictive validity of an Italian version of the Food Craving Questionnaire-State (FCQ-S).Methods: In the first study 368 volunteers aged 18-65years completed the FCQ-S and the Disordered Eating Questionnaire (DEQ). In the second study 41 females with eating disorders symptoms (mean age: 24.4yrs., DEQ≥30; Body Mass Index (BMI) in the range 17 to 30.9kg/m(2), 87.5% in the normal range) and 43 female healthy controls (mean age: 25.6yrs., DEQ<30; BMI in the normal range) took part in an experiment aimed at assessing changes in FCQ-S after exposure to words or images of highly palatable foods.Results: The results of Study 1 showed that the five-factor model had acceptable fit indices. All subscales of the FCQ-S (but Desire) significantly correlated with the disordered eating measure. The strongest relationship was found between disordered eating and fear of losing control over food intake. The results of Study 2 revealed that four out of five FCQ-S subscales significantly increased after exposure to food stimuli. Participants with eating disorders symptoms, as compared to controls, also showed higher fear of losing control over food and higher negative reinforcement, although this difference was only marginally significant.Conclusions: The Italian version of the FCQ-S has good construct and concurrent validity, and it seems sensitive in detecting changes induced by stimuli related to highly palatable foods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Clinical evidence suggests that eating disorder (ED) patients experience poor sleep even if they rarely complain of it. However, direct empirical evidence supporting this relationship is still sparse. In order to provide direct evidence, poor sleep, severity of the ED symptoms and depression were obtained in 562 ED patients at treatment admission (T0). For 271 patients out of them, data were also available after 6 months of standard treatment (T1). Results evidence that at T0 poor sleep predicts severity of ED symptoms through the mediation of depression. Persistence of poor sleep at T1 directly predicts the severity of the ED symptoms both directly and through the mediation of depression. These findings suggest that the treatment of ED may benefit from addressing poor sleep since its presence and persistence increase comorbidity and attrition to the standard treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The Food Craving Questionnaire-Trait (FCQ-T) is commonly used to assess habitual food cravings among individuals. Previous studies have shown that a brief version of this instrument (FCQ-T-r) has good reliability and validity. This article is the first to use Confirmatory factor analysis to examine the psychometric properties of the FCQ-T-r in a cross-validation study. Method: Habitual food cravings, as well as emotion regulation strategies, affective states, and disordered eating behaviors, were investigated in two independent samples of non-clinical adult volunteers (Sample 1: N = 368; Sample 2: N = 246). Confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to simultaneously test model fit statistics and dimensionality of the instrument. FCQ-T-r reliability was assessed by computing the composite reliability coefficient. Results: Analysis supported the unidimensional structure of the scale and fit indices were acceptable for both samples. The FCQ-T-r showed excellent reliability and moderate to high correlations with negative affect and disordered eating. Conclusion: Our results indicate that the FCQ-T-r scores can be reliably used to assess habitual cravings in an Italian non-clinical sample of adults. The robustness of these results is tested by a cross-validation of the model using two independent samples. Further research is required to expand on these findings, particularly in children and adolescents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Insomnia is one of the most common sleep disorders, and it frequently co-occurs with several other psychiatric conditions. The relationship between insomnia and eating disorders is supported by clinical evidence indicating that patients with eating disorders experience poor sleep even if they rarely complain of it. Furthermore, indirect evidence comes from studies indicating that poor sleep predicts obesity and several studies also evidence that restrictive-type eating disorders are associated to objective reduction of sleep quality. Methods One thousand nineteen female university students volunteered for participating to the study. Valid and reliable questionnaires were used and the mediating role of depressive mood assessed. Results Evidence was found that increased severity of insomnia is associated with higher severity of disordered eating. Both insomnia and disordered eating symptoms were related to depression. The mediation analysis evidenced that both the direct path linking insomnia symptoms and eating disorder symptoms are significant and also the indirect paths related to the mediation of depression. Conclusions These findings support the existence of both a direct and an indirect relationship between insomnia symptoms and eating disorder symptoms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study examined psychophysiological reactivity to emotional stimuli in people with persistent insomnia alone or comorbid with disordered eating and in healthy controls. Female participants (39) were presented with 5 blocks of stimuli differing for valence (positive, negative or neutral) and for relatedness to the symptoms complied (sleep or food and body shape). Facial EMG over the corrugator and the zygomatic muscles, Heart Rate, Skin Conductance Level and subjective ratings of valence and arousal were recorded. Results confirmed that people complaining of symptoms of persistent insomnia show reduced activation of the corrugator muscle when exposed to positive stimuli related to sleep. This effect, interpreted as craving, was also found in the asymptomatic control group for the stimuli depicting fit bodies or healthy foods. An enhancement of the corrugator activity indicative of a worry effect was found in the healthy control group for negative sleep related stimuli and in the group with a mixed symptomatology for the negative stimuli related to food and body shape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]