Attachment Style and the Predisposition to Eating Disorders in Adolescence

Abstract

This study arouses from my personal interest to understand more about the attachment styles processes of the teenage girls and the predisposition to develop an eating disorder. Eating disorders in adolescence are being widely noted in the albanian society. Individuals affected more often by eating disorders are women, mostly girls in late adolescence and early adulthood age. The purpose of this study was to focus on exploring the relationship between the tendency to develop an eating disorder and attachment style of teenage girls 15-18 years old. In this study participated 287 teenage girls. They completed two measure instruments: Multidimensional eating disorder Inventory-Garner, Olmstead - Polivy (1983) which measured respectively eating disorders symptoms and Batholomew’s Attachment Style Inventory (1991) which measured the attachment styles of the teenage girls. The hypothesis of the current study was that there was a significant link between unhealthy attachment styles (unsecure, avoidant, disorganized) and the tendecy to develop an eating disorder at teenage girls 15-18 years old. The result in the end of th study was that there is a statistically important relationship between the tendency to develop an eating disorder and unhealthy attachment styles (unsecure, avoidant, disorganized). The study showed that the correlation between unhealthy attachment styles and tendency to develop an eating disorder was significant. Teenage girls with unhealthy attachment styles showed more symptoms of eating disorders, they were in border to develop an eating disorders or they already had one.