Elsevier

Eating Behaviors

Volume 12, Issue 4, December 2011, Pages 325-327
Eating Behaviors

The relation between the lack of control attributional style for indulgent food consumption and bulimic symptoms

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eatbeh.2011.08.002Get rights and content

Abstract

Objective

The study examined the potential link between the lack of control attributional style for indulgent food consumption and bulimic symptoms.

Method

One hundred and 77 undergraduates (145 female; mean age = 19 years-2 months) were administered the Eating Attributional Style Questionnaire and the Sterling Eating Disorder Scales across a five-month period.

Results

SEM analyses confirmed that: (1) uncontrollability attributions for indulgent food consumption were concurrently associated with bulimic symptoms, and (2) external locus of control and uncontrollability attributions for indulgent food consumption predicted changes in bulimic symptoms.

Conclusions

The findings yielded support for the conclusion that the lack of control attributional style for indulgent food consumption is a probable cause of bulimic symptoms.

Highlights

► Examined the link between the attributional style for food consumption and bulimic symptoms. ► The Eating Attributional Style Questionnaire and SEDS were completed by undergraduates twice. ► External locus and uncontrollability attributions predicted changes in bulimic symptoms. ► Yielded evidence for lack of control attributional style as a probable cause of bulimic symptoms.

Introduction

Attributional styles have been found to play a role in psychosocial functioning such as depression (Cole et al., 2008) and eating problems (Morrison, Waller, & Lawson, 2006). The current study was designed to address the latter functioning and examined the extent to which a lack of control attributional style for indulgent food consumption is linked to bulimic symptoms.

There is considerable debate over the types of attributional styles associated with eating problems. When researchers have examined attributional styles for general life events, it has been found that internal locus of control, stable and global style attributions for negative life events are associated with eating problems in women (e.g., Goebel et al., 1989, Watkins et al., 2001). A similar pattern of findings was obtained in a study by Grilo and Shiffman (1994) for food consumption attributions but those appear to be confounded with attributions for general life events. When researchers have unequivocally examined attributional styles for food consumption, it has been found that external locus of control and uncontrollable attributions for indulgent food consumption are associated with eating problems (i.e., dietary restraint and bulimic symptoms) in women (Lattimore et al., 2006, June, Rotenberg and Flood, 2000, Rotenberg et al., 2004). The latter findings are consistent with Rotenberg and Flood's (2000) hypothesis that women with eating problems acquire learned helplessness towards food consumption in accordance with Seligman's (1975) original learned helplessness formulations.

One of the limitations with the preceding research, though, is that it has examined the concurrent relation between the attributional styles for food consumption and eating problems. As a result, the research has yielded little evidence for causal relations. In order to redress that limitation, the current study comprised a short-tem longitudinal design that examined the relation between the attributional style for indulgent food consumption and bulimic symptoms. It was hypothesised that:

  • (1)

    Bulimic symptoms would be stable across time because they were indicative of an eating disorder.

  • (2)

    External locus of control and uncontrollability attributions for indulgent food consumption would covary because they are indicators of a lack of control attributional style.

  • (3)

    External locus of control and uncontrollability attributions for indulgent food consumption would be concurrently associated with bulimic symptoms.

  • (4)

    External locus of control and uncontrollability attributions for indulgent food consumption would predict changes in bulimic symptoms.

Section snippets

Participants

The participants at Time 1 (October) were 261 (62 male and 199 female) undergraduate students with mean age = 19 years-2 months (SD = 3 years, range from 18 to 42). Of those, 177 undergraduates (32 male and 145 female) were administered the same measures 6 months later (March) at Time 2. Analyses (t-tests) showed that there were no appreciable differences on any of the measures (ps > .25) between the sample that remained as opposed to the sample that discontinued participation in the study.

Bulimic symptoms

The 80-item

Results

A preliminary Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) showed that, contrary to expectation, there was not an appreciable covariance between external control attributions at T1 and bulimic symptoms at T1. The covariance was removed in the final model (shown in Fig. 1). The SEM analyses confirmed that the final model was a good fit of the data yielding a Normed Fit Index (NFI) = .99, a Comparative Fit Index (CFI) = 1.00 and a Root Mean Square Residual (RMSEA) < .001, and χ2(1) = .79, p = .37. Researchers have

Discussion

The findings showed that uncontrollability, but not external locus of control, attributions for indulgent food consumption was concurrently associated with bulimic symptoms (at T1). The findings only partially replicated those obtained in previous studies (Lattimore et al., 2006, June, Rotenberg and Flood, 2000, Rotenberg et al., 2004). It is worthwhile to note, though, that the expected association between external locus of control and bulimic symptoms was found at T2, r(175) = .14, p = .03

Role of funding sources

No financial support was provided for the conduct of the research and/or preparation of the manuscript.

Contributors

The research was conducted in partial fulfillment of a Ph.D. by Paula Costa. Professor Ken Rotenberg was the first supervisor and Dr. Mark Trueman was the second supervisor. Dr. Paul Lattimore was a consultant on the Ph.D. and was a collaborator. Each author contributed to the research (literature search, design, analyses) described in the final manuscript and to the writing of the manuscript.

Conflict of interest

There is no conflict of interest.

References (16)

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    The bulimic cognition and behavior subscales (30 items in total) from the Stirling Eating Disorder Scale (SEDS, Williams et al., 1994) were used. Those two subscales have been found to demonstrate acceptable internal consistency (αs > .83), test–retest reliability (rs .85 to .97, ps < .001) and validity (Rotenberg, Costa, Trueman, & Lattimore, 2011). The bulimic cognition subscale and bulimic behavior subscale were correlated in the current study, r(135) = .79, p < .001 and were summed to yield a total bulimic symptoms scale.

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