The Role of Depressive Symptoms and Alexithymia in Predicting Disordered Eating Behavior Among Female Students

The previous Research has shown that undesirable emotions are related to disordered eating behaviors and when eating is in response to negative emotions، it is more likely to affect a person''s health. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of depression symptoms and alexithymia in predicting disordered eating behaviors among female College students. This cross-sectional study was conducted on 464 female students of Allameh Tabataba’i University which were selected by multiple cluster sampling، was conducted. Participants responded to the questionnaires of depression symptoms، Toronto Alexithymia Scale and The eating attitudes test. Data were analyzed using Pearson correlation coefficient and stepwise regression. Results showed that there was a significant internal correlation among depression symptoms، alexithymia and disordered eating behavior (p<0. 01). Also، stepwise regression analysis indicated that depression symptoms and alexithymia significantly predicted 23% and 22% of the variance of disordered eating behaviors respectively (p<0. 01). The results suggest the importance of depression symptoms and alexithymia in predicting the disordered eating behaviors and these factors can explain the high degree of variability of these symptoms.