title: Eating psychopathology amongst athletes: links to current attachment styles.
abstract: The aims of the study were two-fold; first to determine the associations between current attachment styles, and eating psychopathology amongst athletes, and second to simultaneously assess the mediating effects of self-esteem, perfectionism, and depression in this association. Four hundred and eleven British athletes completed self-report instruments pertaining to eating psychopathology, attachment styles, self-esteem, depression, and perfectionism. Athletes who scored highly on both avoidant and anxious attachment styles, reported elevated eating psychopathology scores. However, such associations were indirect and mediated via athletes' levels of self-esteem, self-critical perfectionism, and depression, with self-esteem and depression identified as more salient mediators than self-critical perfectionism. The current findings provide evidence to suggest that insecure attachment styles influence athletes' eating psychopathology via their impact on self-esteem, depression, and self-critical perfectionism. Moreover, self-esteem and depression may play more significant role in transferring the impact of insecure attachment styles on elevated eating psychopathology.
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, University of Central Lancashire, United Kingdom. vshanmugam@uclan.ac.uk
authors.forename: Vaithehy
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Shanmugam
authors.forename: Sophia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Jowett
authors.forename: Caroline
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Meyer
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D056352:Athletes / Q000523:psychology*; D003863:Depression / Q000150:complications / Q000523:psychology; D004435:Eating / Q000523:psychology*; D001068:Feeding and Eating Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009769:Object Attachment; D010551:Personality; D012649:Self Concept; D055815:Young Adult