Family Functioning and Dysfunctional Eating Among Italian Adolescents: The Moderating Role of Gender

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Web End = Child Psychiatry Hum Dev (2016) 47:4352

DOI 10.1007/s10578-015-0543-1

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Web End = ORIGINAL ARTICLE

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Web End = Family Functioning and Dysfunctional Eating Among Italian Adolescents: The Moderating Role of Gender

Fiorenzo Laghi1 Meghan L. McPhie2 Emma Baumgartner1 Jennine S. Rawana2

Sara Pompili1 Roberto Baiocco1

Published online: 17 March 2015 Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015

Abstract The rst aim of this study was to examine the association between different dimensions of family functioning and dysfunctional eating in a sample of Italian adolescent boys and girls. The second aim was to investigate whether gender moderates the relationship between family functioning and dysfunctional eating. Seven hundred and twenty seven adolescents (500 boys and 227 girls) with ages ranging from 15 to 18 years completed a survey of self-report measures. Findings from hierarchical multiple regression analysis suggested that aspects of family functioning such as exibility, cohesion, disengagement, enmeshment, rigidity and chaotic were related to dys-functional eating in adolescents. Additionally the results indicated differences between boys and girls, in particular dysfunctional eating in adolescent boys seemed to be more affected by dimensions of enmeshment and disengagement than dysfunctional eating in girls. This research highlights the important role of various aspects of family functioning in relation to dysfunctional eating in adolescents.

Keywords Dysfunctional eating Adolescents Family

functioning Moderation

Introduction

Dysfunctional eating can be conceptualized as a variety of attitudes and behaviors that reect a broad range of symptoms of feeding and eating disorders, but that, by themselves, do not meet the diagnostic criteria of an eating disorder [1]. Dysfunctional eating includes weight preoccupation, body dissatisfaction, binge eating episodes, compensatory behaviors such as use of laxative and/or self-induced vomiting, dietary restraint, fasting or skipping meals, avoidance of high calorie food and excessive exercise [24].

Available evidence suggests that dysfunctional eating is prevalent during adolescence, particularly among females. For example, Grigg et al. [5] found that 27.4 % of adolescent girls engaged in binge eating, 8 % used laxative to lose weight and 33 % of the total sample were characterized by at least one dysfunctional eating behavior. Additionally,...