Experiencing financial difficulties in college could increase female students' risk of developing an eating disorder.
The recent study also found "extreme" attitudes towards food could predict short-term financial woes in these students, the University of Southampton reported.
"There may be a 'vicious cycle' for these students, where negative attitudes towards eating increase the risk of financial difficulties in the short term, and those difficulties further exacerbate negative eating attitudes in the longer term," said Thomas Richardson, clinical psychologist and lead author of the study.
To make their findings the researchers looked at surveys completed by over 400 undergraduate students located across the U.K. The surveys assessed "family affluence, recent financial difficulties (for example being unable to afford heating or having to borrow money) and attitudes towards food and eating using the Eating Attitudes Test (EAT)," the researchers reported.
The EAT asks for responses to statements such as "I feel extremely guilty after eating," "I am preoccupied with a desire to be thinner," or "I have the impulse to vomit after meals." The students were asked to complete these surveys four times with about three months in between each session.
The findings suggested a higher level of financial difficulty was linked to more severe attitudes towards food, as seen in the initial surveys. Lower family affluence seen at the beginning of the study was linked to higher scores in the EAT in later surveys. On the other hand, higher baseline EAT scores tended to predict increased levels of financial difficulty seen in later surveys.
"It may be that those at higher risk of having an eating disorder feel like they have no control over events in their life, such as their financial situation, and they may then restrict their eating as a way of exercising control in other areas of their life," Richardson concluded.
The findings were published in a recent edition of the International Journal of Eating Disorders.
