Anxiety and Disordered Eating

Empirical accounts of a relation between anxiety and eating disorders date as far back as 1950 (e.g., Keys et al. 1950). Investigations into this relation, particularly studies conducted over the past 20 years, have confirmed that individuals with eating disorders are at significantly elevated risk for generalized anxiety disorder, specific phobias, social phobia, obsessive compulsive disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder (Pallister and Waller 2008; Reyes-Rodríguez et al. 2011). Approximately 65 % of patients with eating disorders meet criteria for at least one anxiety disorder, which tends to predate and to persist beyond remission of the eating disorder (Adambegan et al. 2012; Godart et al. 2003; Kaye et al. 2004; Klump et al. 2004; Swinbourne et al. 2012; Swinbourne and Touyz 2007). Anxiety has thus come to be considered a possible predisposing risk factor for eating disorders, whereas eating disorders may represent more complex manifestations of underlying anxiety vulnerability. …