Previous studies on loneliness and interpersonal dependency suggest a shared relation with eating disorders. Previous findings of the relation of interpersonal dependency with eating disorders may have misestimated the importance of interpersonal dependency by not including loneliness. Measures of loneliness, interpersonal dependency, and disordered eating (drive for thinness, bulimic symptoms, body dissatisfaction) were given to 176 college students. Mediation models were used to test the relative influence of interpersonal dependency and loneliness on body dissatisfaction. Loneliness mediated the relation between interpersonal dependency and body dissatisfaction; no other mediation models could be tested.
This is an author-produced, peer-reviewed version of this article. © 2009, Elsevier. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. The final, definitive version of this document can be found online at the Personality and Individual Differences, doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2008.10.027
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