Understanding and Addressing the Link Between Social Anxiety and Eating Psychopathology

Social anxiety and eating psychopathology frequently co-occur. Fear of negative evaluation, specifically social appearance anxiety, underlies both social anxiety and eating psychopathology. This thesis aimed to investigate the relationship between social anxiety and eating psychopathology and to evaluate the acceptability, feasibility and preliminary effectiveness of a survey intervention for social appearance anxiety in people at risk of eating psychopathology.

The thesis is divided into two sections. The first half is a systematic review and meta-analysis of the literature, which investigated the extent to which eating psychopathology and social anxiety are related. Seventy-five papers were identified through a systematic search of Psycinfo, Scopus and Medline. The findings reinforce the notion that there is a significant relationship between social anxiety and eating psychopathology.

The second section is an empirical research project using a wait-list control design, which aimed to investigate the feasibility, acceptability and preliminary effectiveness of a body image survey intervention in females at risk of eating psychopathology. The results suggested that body image surveys are deemed acceptable by patients and are strongly effective at reducing social appearance anxiety. The wait-list control design was a feasible way of evaluating body image surveys. Whilst a full trial is now needed, body image surveys should be used in clinical practice to target social appearance anxiety.