Empirically derived classes of eating pathology in male and female college students

ABSTRACT

Background: The empirical structure of eating disorder (ED) pathology has often been studied in female, clinical samples, leaving questions about the structure of ED pathology in males and nonclinical samples. Method: A latent class analysis was performed on data combined from two different studies (N = 1,751) using the behavioral items in the Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire (EDE-Q; binge eating, self-induced vomiting, laxative use, and excessive exercise), with the addition of an item representing restraint. Validation analyses examined weight, shape, and eating concern among the classes. Results: Three similar classes emerged for both the men and women’s models: very low ED behaviors, binge eating, and high ED behaviors. Discussion: These results suggest that binge eating occurs within the context of lower symptom and higher symptom presentations, and that the empirical structure of ED symptoms does not differ in men and women in the nonclinical population. Further research is needed to clarify whether ED phenotypes differ in men and women.

Notes

¹ The Bartlett’s test for equality of variances for eating concern indicated that the assumption of equal variances had been violated, Χ²(2, N = 1,015) = 140.23, p < 0.001. We corrected for unequal variances in t-tests comparing eating concern in each of the classes and found unchanged results.