Bauer A, et al. - The applicability of the theory for patients with eating disorders, who perceived their own body as a highly aversive, threat-evoking stimulus underwent an inspection in this trial. The findings affirmed the proposition regarding early vigilance in anorexia nervosa (AN) and the subsequent decrease in attention to unattractive body parts. There did not appear to be any indication of attentional avoidance. The vigilance-avoidance theory for the exposure to one's own body in adolescents with AN received partial support.

Methods

• The description of enrollees was N = 56 female adolescents with anorexia nervosa (AN) and n = 43 healthy controls (HC) aged 13-18 years.
• The candidates viewed own-body pictures while their eye movements were recorded.
• A comparison was pursued of the relative fixation times on self-defined unattractive body areas between the groups by sequencing the overall presentation time of 6,000 ms into six intervals at 1,000 ms.

Results

• Prominently stronger attentional bias was illustrated by the enrollees with AN, for unattractive body areas than HC within the time intervals 1, 2, and 3. For intervals 4, 5, and 6, there were no marked group variations.
• The bias for unattractive body areas was considerably stronger in interval 1 compared to intervals 4, 5, and 6, within the AN group, .
• In contrast, the HC group reported a stable pattern of attention deployment.
• In AN, a positive link was disclosed between early attention deployment with the negative affect reported after photo presentation.