Fear of Fat Moderates the Association between Contamination Disgust and Eating Concerns

Introduction: Certain forms of disgust, specifically contamination disgust, may represent risk factors for eating psychopathology such as eating concerns (e.g., cognitive distress/worries surrounding eating). Furthermore, anti-fat attitudes, specifically fear of fat, may increase risk for eating concerns. However, research has yet to investigate these risk factors together despite notable associations between these constructs and eating concerns. Therefore, this study examined associations between contamination disgust and eating concerns, with fear of fat moderating these associations. Furthermore, these associations were examined with other eating psychopathology outcomes to investigate if theoretical relationships between focal predictors would generalize to other forms of eating psychopathology. Methods: Participants were 173 females (Mage = 18.9; SD = 1.00; Range = 18-23) from a Midwestern university in the United States. Analyses examined associations of contamination disgust, fear of fat, and their interaction with eating disorder symptoms. Results: Simple slopes revealed that contamination disgust was not significantly associated with eating concerns at low fear of fat. However, at high fear of fat, contamination disgust was significantly positively associated with eating concerns. These interactions were not significant when predicting shape concerns, weight concerns, or restraint. Discussion: Results suggest that contamination disgust and fear of fat may be risk factors for eating concerns and that these variables should potentially be modeled in tandem. Screening for fear of fat among clients likely to report high levels of contamination disgust may provide indirect information on these clients’ comorbid eating concerns. Future research should examine if current associations generalize to other populations outside of college-aged women.