Assessing readiness for change in the eating disorders: The psychometric properties of the readiness and motivation interview.

This study examined the psychometric properties of the Readiness and Motivation Interview (RMI), a symptom-specific measure of readiness and motivation for change in the eating disorders. For 4 symptom domains, the RMI assesses the extent to which individuals are in precontemplation, contemplation, and action/maintenance, and the extent to which change is made for internal versus external reasons. Ninety-nine individuals with eating disorders completed the RMI and measures to assess convergent, divergent, and criterion validity. RMI profiles revealed differences in readiness and motivation across symptom domains. The RMI demonstrated good reliability and construct validity, and RMI scores predicted anticipated difficulty of recovery activities, completion of recovery activities, decision to enroll in an intensive symptom-reduction program, and treatment dropout. The RMI may have important clinical applications by providing much-needed information on client readiness for action-oriented treatment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Understanding a link between sexual harassment and eating disorder symptoms: A mediational analysis.

Using data from 3 samples of working women and men, the present study examines the association between sexual harassment and eating disorder symptoms by studying the processes that may underlie this relationship. The results of structural equation modeling suggest a link between sexual harassment and eating disorder symptoms among women and indicate that this relationship is mediated by psychological distress, self-esteem, and self-blame. Further, sexual harassment was found to predict eating disorder symptoms among women even when experiences of sexual assault were included in the model. No relationship was found between sexual harassment and eating disorder symptoms among men. The theoretical and clinical implications of these results are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Maintaining Change Following Eating Disorder Treatment.

Residential eating disorder treatment involves emotional, financial, and time commitments from clients, staff, and the health care system. At discharge, most clients have made substantial nutritional, social, and psychological changes. However, maintaining these changes when intensive support is no longer available represents a significant challenge, and it is common for individuals to slip back into previous eating disorder patterns. Interviews with 32 individuals were conducted 6 months after discharge. Qualitative analyses revealed a pattern of factors that facilitated and hindered recovery. These factors were integrated with past research findings to develop a conceptual model about how changes are maintained. Recommendations regarding ways that health care professionals can assist with the transition from intensive treatment to community living are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Are intuitive eating and eating disorder symptomatology opposite poles of the same construct?

Two studies explored whether intuitive eating (i.e., eating based on physiological hunger and satiety cues rather than situational and emotional cues) is a distinct construct from low levels of eating disorder (ED) symptomatology among college women. Previous research has demonstrated that high levels of ED symptomatology are related to lower levels of well-being. Therefore, if intuitive eating is a distinct construct, then it should be associated with indices of well-being above and beyond the variance accounted for by ED symptomatology. Findings revealed that two intuitive eating components (i.e., eating for physical rather than emotional reasons and reliance on internal hunger and satiety cues) made unique contributions to each well-being measure, whereas the remaining intuitive eating component (i.e., unconditional permission to eat) overlapped substantially with low levels of ED symptomatology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

After Our Bodies Ourselves.

The panel "After Our Bodies Ourselves," organized by Section III (Women, Gender, and Psychoanalysis), focused on the trajectory that feminism took since the publication in the early 1970s of Our Bodies Ourselves. Each of the five panelists had her own approach to the broad topic. Papers covered a historical overview of some of the societal changes affecting women in the past few decades in the United States; the psychodynamic impact of elective body-altering surgeries on adult women and adolescent girls; an introduction to a new construct--object orientation--and its implications in the rethinking of the construct of gender; and a case study about a woman with a snake phobia. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

炒烹饪法渊源再探

炒烹饪法应该具备两个必要条件:一是炊具的材料和工艺条件;二是饮食需求的社会条件.先秦时期的金属制造工艺虽然相当高超,但由于受饮食风尚和社会制度制约,炒烹饪法还不具备成熟的条件.汉代以后,铁锅流行;魏晋时期,食风渐变;唐宋两朝,炒烹饪法终于成熟.     

Lack of Long-Lasting Consequences of Starvation on Eating Pathology in Jewish Holocaust Survivors of Nazi Concentration Camps.

The purpose of the present study was to investigate whether Holocaust survivors will show the same eating pathologies that were found in other participants who had also undergone starvation. Fifty-five Holocaust survivors and 43 matched control participants answered a questionnaire designed to explore eating problems and pathologies described in the literature as lasting for decades after a period of severe food restriction. Confirmation of the survivors' reports was obtained from their children. No significant differences in current eating habits were found between the Holocaust survivors and their matched controls. Prolonged starvation in Holocaust survivors did not lead to disordered eating habits in the sample. These results conflict with the notion that severe starvation consistently leads to food preoccupation and disordered eating. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Revisiting the latent structure of eating disorders: Taxometric analyses with nonbehavioral indicators.

Researchers have debated whether clinical eating disorders are best conceptualized as one extreme along a continuum of degree or as qualitatively different from less severe eating disturbances. Taxometric analysis, a set of procedures that assess the structure of a given disorder by detecting whether a latent taxon exists among its indicators, has just begun to be applied to eating disorder research. Its application to this domain may clarify whether eating disorders best conform to a dimensional (i.e.. continuum) or taxonic model. The latent structure of eating disorders was examined in a sample of 532 college women by using 2 popular taxometric procedures (i.e., maximum covariance analysis and latent mode analysis) with 5 nonbehavioral indicators of eating disorder symptomatology. Results across procedures suggest that the data are more indicative of a dimensional solution, as no latent taxon was uncovered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Deprivation selectively modulates brain potentials to food pictures.

Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were used to examine whether the processing of food pictures is selectively modulated by changes in the motivational state of the observer. Sixteen healthy male volunteers were tested twice 1 week apart, either after 24 hr of food deprivation or after normal food intake. ERPs were measured while participants viewed appetitive food pictures as well as standard emotional and neutral control pictures. Results show that the ERPs to food pictures in a hungry, rather than satiated, state were associated with enlarged positive potentials over posterior sensor sites in a time window of 170-310 ms poststimulus. Minimum-norm analysis suggests the enhanced processing of food cues primarily in occipito-temporo-parietal regions. In contrast, processing of standard emotional and neutral pictures was not modulated by food deprivation. Considered from the perspective of motivated attention, the selective change of food cue processing may reflect a state-dependent change in stimulus salience. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)