Correlatos psicosociales en los trastornos de la conducta alimentaria en adolescentes

Resumen

The main objective of this research was to determine the percentage of both female and male adolescents from the province of Alicante who had eating behaviours risk which could lead to developing an Eating Disorder (ED) and to analyse the role of different health behaviours, personality traits and psycho-social variables in the development of these disorders. The health behaviours studied were eating habits, physical activity and drug use; the personality traits were self-esteem, self-concept, body dissatisfaction and perfectionism; and the psycho-social variables studied were social support, coping strategies, perceived pressure to lose weight and social comparisons with peer group in relation to physical appearance and eating. One-stage cluster sampling was used in order to obtain a sample of students in secondary education representative of their general population. Participants were 2142 students, 47.2% boys and 52.8% girls. These students were from 9 randomly selected secondary education centers in the Province of Alicante. The average age was 13.96 years old (sd = 1.34). In conclusion, the risk of developing an ED in the representative sample of secondary students from the province of Alicante, made up of 2142 female and male adolescents, with an average age of 14 was 11.2%. 7.79% were girls and 3.34% were boys. In relation to health behaviour, the profile of girls at high risk of developing an ED, with respect to eating habits is: missing meals, eating less unhealthy foods, going on diets, binge eating, vomiting, taking laxatives and paying attention to food components. With respect to physical activity, they do it to lose weight and burn off calories. And regarding substance use, they take medication to calm themselves down. The profile of boys at high risk is that they go on diets more frequently, pay attention to food components and do physical activity to lose weight. With regard to the psycho-social variables, the profile of girls with a high risk of developing an ED is: worse self-esteem and physical, emotional and family self-concept. Greater self-oriented and socially prescribed perfectionism and also body dissatisfaction. With respect to boys, those at high risk for developing the disorder had worse physical self-concept, greater self-oriented and socially prescribed perfectionism and high body dissatisfaction. Also, girls at high risk for developing an ED perceived less support from their parents, and used avoidance coping strategies, perceive more pressure to lose weight and compare their physical appearance and eating habits with their peers. With regard to boys with a high risk of developing an ED, they perceive less support from their classmates, use avoidance coping strategies, perceive more pressure to lose weight and compare their physical appearance and eating habits with their peers to a greater extent. Finally, the exploratory model used reveals that eating restriction has a direct effect on the risk of developing an ED and acts as a mediator variable between body dissatisfaction and the risk of developing the disorder. Gender acts as a moderator variable.