Attachment representations in community girls at risk for binge-eating.

Binge-eating disorder (BED) is the prevalent form of Eating Disorder (ED)s among community female adolescents, surpassing both Anorexia and Bulimia Nervosa (Marzilli, Cerniglia &Cimino, 2018). Despite a number of studies investigating the relationships between EDs and attachment in clinical teenager population (Gander, Sevecke & Buchheim, 2015; Pace, Guiducci & Cavanna, 2016, 2017), few studies have deepened specifically the link between the risk for binge-eating symptoms and attachment in normative adolescents, usually using selfreports (Laghi et al., 2012). Therefore, the aim of our study was to compare attachment representations among community female adolescents at risk or not for binge eating symptoms using a semi-structured interview. Participants were 109 girls (aged 14-19y, M=16.47, SD = 1.3) recruited in public high schools: 56 were resulted at-risk for binge-eating (BE group) and 53 were not-at-risk for BE (NBE group) through the Binge Eating Scale (BES; Gormally et al., 1982). All the participants were assessed through the Friends and Family Interview (FFI, Steele & Steele, 2005), a semi-structured interview to assess adolescents’ attachment representations as Secure (S), Dismissing (Ds), Preoccupied (P), Disorganized (D), both in terms of classifications and scales. The FFI classifications were 27 S (48%), 12 Ds (21%), 16 P (29%) and one D (2%) in the BE group , while they were 39 S (74%), eight Ds (15%) and six P (11%) with no D in the NBE group, revealing more insecure classifications, specifically Preoccupied ones, among girls at risk for BE compared with their control peers ( 2 = 8.451, df = 3, p = .038), as well as significantly higher scores on Preoccupied scale (BE: M = 2.11, DS = .86, NBE: M = 1.57, DS = .73, t = 3.532, p = .001). The attachment patterns showed by the community girls at-risk for BE were consistent with those found in literature on bulimia, more than in anorexia. Authors discussed clinical implications and future directions.