The role of anxiety and alexithymia in predicting disordered eating behaviors among students:implication for health promotion

Abstract Background and objective: Research results show that undesirable emotion are related to disordered eating behaviors and when eating is in response to negative emotions, it is more likely that a person loses his health. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of anxiety and alexithymia in predicting disordered eating behaviors among student. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study on 477 student of Allameh Tabataba'i University who were selected by multiple cluster sampling, was conducted. Participants responded to the questionnaires of demographic characteristics, anxiety of Costello and Comrey (1967), Twenty-item Toronto Alexithymia and disordered eating behaviors of Garner and colleagues (1982). Data were analyzed using Pearson correlation coefficient and stepwise regression. Results: Results showed that there was significant internal correlation among anxiety, alexithymia and disordered eating behaviors (p<0.01). Also, stepwise regression analysis indicated that anxiety and alexithymia significantly predicted, respectively, 40% and 29% of the variance of disordered eating behaviors (p<0.01). Conclusion: This study results suggest the importance of anxiety and alexithymia in predicting disordered eating behaviors and these factors can explain the high degree of variability of this behaviors. Keywords: Alexithymia, Anxiety, Eating behavior, Students.