Risk Factors That Predict Future Onset of Each DSM-5 Eating Disorder: Predictive Specificity in High-Risk Adolescent Females

Summary

This prospective cohort study followed 1,272 adolescent females over multiple years, identifying which baseline psychosocial and behavioral risk factors predicted the future onset of distinct DSM-5 eating disorders (anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge eating disorder, and other eating disorder presentations). The study design enabled differentiation among predictors — body dissatisfaction and dietary restriction predicted multiple eating-disorder onsets, but specific risk-factor profiles also distinguished anorexia onset from bulimia onset from binge-eating onset. Stice and colleagues are among the leading research groups in eating-disorder prevention; this paper supplies one of the cleaner empirical bases for who is at elevated risk for which eating-disorder presentation, with implications for how broader nutrition interventions should screen and refer at-risk participants.