Relationships between psychological stress, coping and disordered eating: A review

Objective: Psychological stress and inadequate coping skills have been hypo thesized to play important roles in the etiology of disordered eating. This paper reviews the empirical evidence which has emerged regarding the propo sed relationships among stress, coping skills and various forms of disorder ed eating. Method: A search of psychological and medical databases was cond ucted to identify studies examining life events, and other types of psychol ogical stress and coping strategies, in relation to the onset of disordered eating. Results: Despite methodological limitations such as the use of non -representative samples and retrospective methodologies, evidence of relati onships between stress, coping and disordered eating was obtained in the ma jority of studies reviewed. Discussion: The implications of these findings are discussed and suggestions for future research, including the utilizatio n of longitudinal, prospective studies, are presented.