| Adolescence is a period of developmental risk for depression and disordered eating, particularly among adolescent girls. The current set of studies extends the understanding of the comorbidity between depression and disordered eating in adolescence by examining developmental relationships and shared cognitive vulnerabilities. Study 1 found that adolescent girls reported much higher levels of fear of fat and dieting compared to adolescent boys; however, adolescent girls and boys were more similar on levels of food preoccupation. Adolescents with higher levels of fear of fat, specifically, at age 15 were at risk for growth in depression from ages 15 to 20. These results suggest the utility of a prevention targeting fear of fat to reduce risk for both depression and disordered eating among adolescent girls. Study 2 found that, regardless of whether individuals begin adolescence with high levels of depression symptoms or develop increasing levels of depression symptoms over time, adolescents on high-risk depression trajectories had higher levels of disordered eating at ages 15 and 18 compared to their peers with stably low depression symptoms. Study 3 failed to find distinct subgroups of adolescents with unique profiles of cognitive vulnerabilities to depression and disordered eating. Taken together, these results highlight the utility of examining distinct aspects of disordered eating and clarify the directionality of the developmental relationship between depression and disordered eating. |
