THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN COPING AND DISORDERED EATING IN LATINO PREADOLESCENTS

Jackelyn   Hidalgo-Mendez

Disordered eating (DE) behaviors and attitudes are prevalent, and may lead to negative consequences on individuals’ emotional, social and physical wellbeing. While a combination of various factors may contribute to disturbed eating behavior (i.e. biological, psychological, and/or socioenvironmental), ineffective coping has been identified as a psychological risk factor. The first aim of this study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of a commonly-used measure of disordered eating, the Children’s Eating Attitudes Test (ChEAT) with a validated new scoring system. The second aim was to address identified gaps in current literature and examine the relationship between coping and disordered eating in a sample of low-income, Latino preadolescents. 122 low-income Latino preadolescent boys and girls participated in this study. The ChEAT was reliable for this population based on the principal component analysis. However, although the components identified were similar to factors identified in previous studies, the final solution did not match exact results of any previous factor analytic studies— especially with regard to which items loaded on which components. Overall, the hypotheses about the relationships between coping and disordered eating were not supported in this sample; there were no significant relationships between coping and disordered eating when data from boys and girls were combined. However, significant gender by coping interactions showed that, and in contrast to predictions, both primary and secondary coping for boys were positively associated with overconcern with body size. There were no significant relationships for girls. Secondary findings showed that the preadolescent girls utilized more primary engagement coping compared to boys, as well as demonstrated location differences related to the use of coping and disordered eating attitudes. Implications for understanding the relationship between coping and overconcern with body weight for the low-income Latino preadolescent boys are considered, along with recommendations for future research and for prospective prevention programs. This study contributes to the literature as it addresses key gaps that are vital to better understand the relationship between coping and disordered eating. Better understanding may further benefit prevention programs and interventions, specifically those that aim to prevent disordered eating and eating disorders.

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN COPING AND DISORDERED EATING IN LATINO PREADOLESCENTS

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