Eating disorders and social anxiety

While the relationship between eating disorders and depression has frequently been explored, the relationship between eating disorders and anxiety has received less attention. In this study, the occurrence of social anxiety in a sample of eating disorder patients was investigated. Subjects were an all female sample of anorexics, bulimics, social phobics, and normal controls who completed one self report measure of social anxiety, the Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory, and two computerized measures of visual attention, the Revised Stroop Color Naming Task for Social Phobics and the Visual Dot Probe task. The primary study hypotheses were that; (1) the anorexic and bulimic subjects would score higher on the self-report measure of social anxiety than the normal control subjects, and (2) the anorexic and bulimic subjects would display patterns of attentional bias on the computerized measures that are commensurate with the presence of social anxiety. The first hypothesis was supported. Anorexic and bulimic subjects scored significantly higher on the self-report measure of social anxiety than the normal controls, though not as high as the social phobics. The second hypothesis received partial support. The bulimic group had a mean score on the primary variable of interest on the Revised Stroop Color Naming Task for Social Phobics that was statistically indistinguishable from the mean score generated by the social phobic group. The anorexic group scored in a middle range and was not statistically different from either the bulimics and social phobics above them or the normal control subjects below them. Performance on the Visual Dot Probe task failed to yield the expected pattern of performance for any of the groups. The discussion explores the theoretical and clinical implications of these findings, limitations in the study, and avenues for future investigation