Biological Risk Factors for Onset of Binge Eating and Compensatory Behaviors

The purpose of this proposed project is to test whether several biological factors (such as
elevated brain reward region and attention region response to high-calorie foods, weaker
inhibitory region response to high-calorie foods, habitual caloric deprivation, and elevated
limbic region responsivity) increase the risk of problematic eating (bingeing and purging) in
female adolescents. Participants will be adolescent girls aged 14-16, some of whom will have
parental history of eating pathology. They will be recruited from the general population but
their age, gender, and the presence of parental lifetime eating pathology will create a
high-risk sample. The goals of the proposed project are to (1) conduct a prospective
high-risk study to test whether proposed biological risk factors predict the future onset of
core ED symptoms (e.g., binge eating, compensatory behaviors); (2) test hypotheses regarding
how these biological risk factors and established self-report ED risk factors may work
together to predict ED behavior onset; (3) examine if certain biological factors account for
the effects of certain established self-reported ED risk factors (e.g., elevated brain
response to thin models accounts for the effect of questionnaire-measured thin-ideal
internalization). The participants will complete a baseline assessment and then follow-ups
assessments over a span of three years. In addition, they will complete one fMRI scan after
the first assessment.