Personality as a Risk Factor for Eating Disorders

There are a number of ways in which personality factors and eating disorders (EDs) may be related. Personality factors may increase the risk of EDs, EDs may increase the risk of personality disorders, or certain third variables may increase the risk of disturbances in both areas. This chapter reviews personality and EDs from three different perspectives: personality traits that may prospectively increase one's risk for the development of EDs and/or disordered eating behavior; empirically derived personality subtypes of EDs; and personality traits/personality disorder symptoms that commonly co-occur with EDs and may be related to ED course or outcome. The remainder of the chapter highlights research findings that have relevance to understanding the association between personality and EDs as conceptualized in the following models: the predispositional model, pathoplasticity model and the spectrum model.