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Disordered Eating, Anxiety 4
This unchecked anxiety may account for the escalation of risk factors such as
body dissatisfaction and negative affect into disordered eating, and later into full-blown
eating disorders. This unchecked anxiety is also positively correlated with avoidant
coping strategies whereas approach coping strategies are negatively correlated with
anxiety (Whatley, Foreman, & Richards, 1998), suggesting that ways to manage anxiety
outside of food-related coping mechanisms need to be addressed. Anxiety is a clear
component of eating disorder pathology and should not be overlooked as prevention
programs are being developed.
Short-Comings of Eating Disorder Preventions
Unfortunately, recent efforts to find a reliable prevention for eating disorders have
failed to address anxiety—instead, most prevention research focuses on increasing the
information about the risks of eating disorders rather than providing high-risk populations
with an interactive approach that changes behavior (Franko and Orosan-Weine, 1998).
To date, many eating disorder preventions have successfully increased the participants’
knowledge of the eating disorder pathology. However, this strategy has failed to produce
long-term resilience to disordered eating behavior (Stice and Shaw, 2004). Carter et al.
(1997) integrated information sessions concerning the effects of dieting, the development
of eating disorders, society’s pressures to be thin, and the benefits of healthy eating into
school curriculum; unfortunately, at the 6-month follow-up, scores on the Eating Disorder
Exam (EDE-Q) increased, showing that disordered eating increased. This suggests that
behavioral risk factors, such as those defined by Patton et al. (1990) including “attenuated
eating symptoms” (such as emotional eating) and general psychological symptoms (such
as anxiety), show more promise as a target for future eating disorder prevention (Franko
and Orosan-Weine, 1998).
It is time that a prevention is developed that addresses the comorbidity of anxiety
and eating disorders in order to give high-risk populations new ways to manage their
anxiety without resorting to disordered eating.
Written Emotional Disclosure as a Positive Coping Mechanism
Written emotional disclosure has emerged in the last decade as a new therapy that
encourages its participants to release negative emotions, events, and concerns through
writing. This new therapy has been shown to have positive health benefits, both
physically and psychologically. Pennebaker and Susman (1988) found an increase in
autonomatic nervous system activity when participants inhibited their thoughts or
feelings, resulting in a culmination of stress. Written emotional disclosure showed a
significant alleviation of this stress. Pennebaker (1997) also used written emotional
disclosure as a therapeutic practice and again found promising results in the participants’
mental and physical health. Because of this past research, written emotional disclosure is
gaining credibility as a new and robust therapy.
More specifically, because written emotional disclosure focuses on anxietyproducing
events, it is a positive coping mechanism. Frisina, Borod, and Lepore (2004)
conducted a meta-analysis on the effects of written emotional disclosure on clinical
populations. They found that, among the many psychological benefits associated with
written emotional disclosure, a reduction in anxiety occurred. Because anxiety goes hand