DClinPsy Portfolio Volume 1 of 3 - University of Hertfordshire ...

This is consistent with the assertion that the body image and eating-related risk factors
that emerge after puberty might contribute to the elevated rates of depression for
adolescent girls. It may be that experiential avoidance and cognitive fusion increase the
risk of both depression and disordered eating thus inflexibility acts as a common process.
Clinical implications
Due to the cross sectional study design it is not possible to know whether inflexibility
leads to eating pathology (as a precipitating or maintaining factor) or whether eating
pathology promotes higher levels of inflexibility. Or it might be that inflexibility leads to
an increased risk of body dissatisfaction under certain circumstances (e.g.
biopsychosocial risk factors detailed above) which may lead to disordered eating
behaviours. This will be relevant to whether or not it would be useful preventatively;
therefore further research could consider this question prospectively using a longitudinal
study design.
Currently there is little research that evaluates preventative treatment in the adolescent
sub-clinical eating disordered population. It may be that such prevention at this critical
age and developmental stage will be beneficial.
Body image acceptance is associated with flexibility as opposed to inflexibility that is
implicated in a variety of disorders including ED, therefore if psychological acceptance
of body dissatisfaction can be facilitated it will decrease the risk of disordered eating
progressing to an ED. The goal of prevention programmes has been to avoid or eliminate
a collection of body related perceptions such as ‘I see myself as being fat’, feelings such
as ‘I do not like my body because I am fat’ and beliefs such as ‘it is very important for
me to be thin’ which are thought to motivate unhealthy behaviours, anxiety and social
withdrawal (Smolak, Levine and Striegel-Moore, 1996). It may be more useful to
encourage ‘acceptance’ of body image or alongside psycho-education about the
representation of beauty in the media (given to US adolescents).
215