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Binge eating and social anxiety in treatment-seeking adolescents with eating disorders or severe obesity

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Eating and Weight Disorders - Studies on Anorexia, Bulimia and Obesity Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose

Binge eating is a common behavior in children and adolescents who suffer from either eating disorders (EDs) or from severe obesity. The purpose of the current study was to explore the association between social anxiety and binge eating and compare prevalence rates of social anxiety between youth with severe obesity or EDs who did or did not engage in binge eating.

Methods

Retrospective data on treatment-seeking youth’s (n = 490) eating behaviors and social anxiety at assessment were analyzed.

Results

Results indicate that those who engage in binge eating have higher rates of social anxiety; frequency of binges does not predict severity of social anxiety, though social anxiety predicts presence of binge eating. Adolescents with EDs had higher rates of social anxiety than those with obesity, and for both groups, rates of social anxiety were highest in those who binge.

Conclusions

Clinicians who treat youth with EDs and with obesity should be aware of the relationship between binge eating and social anxiety and of the need for treatment to address both these disorders.

Level of Evidence

Level V, cross-sectional descriptive study.

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Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute for providing the Capacity Building Award to help fund the Pediatric Research on Eating Disorders and Obesity (PREDO) team.

Funding

The research team responsible for the conduct of this research study was funded by the Capacity Building Award granted by the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario, 401 Smyth Road, Ottawa, ON, K1H 8L1, Canada

    Wendy Spettigue, Nicole Obeid, Mark Norris, Stasia Hadjiyannakis & Annick Buchholz

  2. Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute, 401 Smyth Road, Ottawa, ON, K1H 5B2, Canada

    Wendy Spettigue, Nicole Obeid, Alexandre Santos, Mark Norris & Rami Hamati

  3. Centre for Healthy Active Living, Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario, 1355 Bank Street, Ottawa, ON, K1H 8K7, Canada

    Stasia Hadjiyannakis & Annick Buchholz

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  1. Wendy Spettigue
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Correspondence to Wendy Spettigue.

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Research involving human participants and/or animals

This research study was approved by the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario’s Research Ethics Board. All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study, as well as a parent or guardian for each participant.

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Spettigue, W., Obeid, N., Santos, A. et al. Binge eating and social anxiety in treatment-seeking adolescents with eating disorders or severe obesity. Eat Weight Disord 25, 787–793 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40519-019-00689-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40519-019-00689-6

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