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

Body image acceptance and mood disorders
ACT holds that a lack of acceptance of body image is associated with inflexibility and
therefore with pathology. ACT would agree with other researchers that body
dissatisfaction is so pervasive among adolescent girls that it represents “normative
discontent” (sandoz et al, 2006). Although body dissatisfaction is one of the most robust
predictors of disordered eating (Killen, Hayward, Haydel, Wilson, Hammer, Kraemer,
Blair-Greiner , & 1996; Stice, et al, 2001, Stice 2002), the majority of girls who exhibit
body dissatisfaction do not go on to develop an eating disorder, this may indicate that an
individual’s level of acceptance or flexibility in emotional processing is a key protective
factor as supported by this study.
Research has indicated that feelings of depression and high levels of negative affect lead
to disordered eating (Killen et al., 1996; Stice, et al, 2001; Stice and Agras, 1998;
Wertheim, Koerner, & Paxton, 2004). However other studies for example Stice et al’s
(2001) longitudinal study ( n = 1,124), concluded that elevated body dissatisfaction,
dietary restraint, and bulimic symptoms at study entry predicted onset of subsequent
depression among initially non-depressed youth after controlling for initial depressive
symptoms. Results were therefore suggestive of disordered eating preceding depressive
symptoms instead of depression preceding disordered eating. 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 the
process of inflexibility increases the risk of both depression and disordered eating thus
acting as a common process.
278