Keynote 23 - Risk Factors That Predict Future Onset of Eating Disorders: Implications for Prevention

An understanding of risk factors that predict future onset of eating disorders is vital for informing the design of optimally effective eating disorder prevention programs. This presentation will review recent findings on risk factors for eating disorders that address four important gaps in our knowledge. First, findings from research focused on identifying risk factors that predict future onset of each type of eating disorder, including anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge eating disorder, and purging disorder will be reviewed, which suggest that the risk processes are somewhat distinct for the different eating disorders but has also identified a few transdiagnostic risk factors. Second, findings regarding the typical order of symptom emergence for each eating disorder type and the relation of prodromal symptoms to future onset of eating disorders will be reviewed, which provide evidence that attitudinal prodromal symptoms (e.g., overvaluation of weight/shape) and unhealthy compensatory weight control behaviors typically emerge before binge eating. Third, findings from research focused on identifying interactions between risk factors in the prediction of future onset of each eating disorder will be reviewed, which suggest that there may be qualitatively distinct risk pathways to onset of each eating disorder. Fourth, research on the temporal sequencing of risk factor emergence that provide support for a multivariate mediational model of binge eating/compensatory behavior eating disorders will be reviewed. The implications of these novel findings for how to design more effective eating disorder prevention programs for the various eating disorders will be highlighted and potentially useful directions for future research will be discussed.