OBESITY, BINGE-EATING AND PSYCHOPATHOLOGY - ARE THEY RELATED

Obese female subjects with binge eating disorder BED; (N = 107) comple ted the Beck Depression Inventory, Symptom Checklist-90, Inventory of Interpersonal Problems, and Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale. Subjects were divided into moderate or severe binger on the basis of scores on the Binge Eating Scale, and grouped into moderately or severely obese by p erforming a median split on their weights. Spearman correlational anal yses were performed to determine the relationship between psychopathol ogy and obesity and psychopathology and binge eating. Analyses of vari ance (ANOVAs) were then performed using scores on the psychological me asures with subjects grouped both by severity of obesity and severity of binge eating. The results indicated that in our sample, obesity and scores on the measures of psychiatric symptomatology were unrelated H owever, a significant positive relationship was found between binge ea ting severity and degree of psychiatric symptomatology. We suggest tha t binge eating may account for the observed relationship between obesi ty and psychopathology reported in previous studies. We discuss the im portance of assessing BED when conducting research with obese individu als. (C) 1994 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.