Overview Of Approach And Avoidance Motivation In Eating Disorders

Approach and avoidance motivation in eating disorders
According to (Eating disorders Victoria, 2015) eating disorder is a serious mental health issue. It is not about the life style choice. They are characterised by unhealthy eating and other physical complications. Some common eating disorders are:
Anorexia nervosa, Bulimia nervosa and Binge eating disorder.
Aim:
The aim of this research is to study in more detail the available data of reward and punishment sensitivity which are measured by BIS and BAS scales in individuals who have eating disorders and who have recovered from eating disorder in comparison to the healthy controls.
Hypotheses:
There were two hypotheses in this research. One was people who have eating disorder would have

The purpose of the approach system, the behavioural activation system is to show the personality and nature of the individuals which reflects reward sensitivity, including behaviours in which people like to be with other people more than being alone and other behaviours in which people don’t really think or ask before doing something for e.g. overeating, breaking rules, Borrowing without asking etc. The other system which is avoidance system, the behavioural inhibition system relates to personality or habits which reflects punishment sensitivity, including anxiety and other things like frustration, fear, jealousy

There is a connection between disordered eating and punishment sensitivity. Dawe and Loxton (2004) suggest that if people have binge eating behaviour they are more likely to be sensitive to reward. According to Harrison et al. (2010) a systematic review showed that people who have disordered eating behaviour including anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa got high scores on reward sensitivity questionnaires as compared to healthy controls.
Method:
Participants:
286 participants were chosen for this research in which 91 were healthy controls, 121 with current eating disorder and 74 were recovered from eating disorder. Eating disordered participants were chosen according to DSM-IV criteria. For choosing eating disorder participants all of information about their weight, height, number of binges per week, other behaviours such as self-induced vomiting too much of exercise, food restriction and duration of symptoms by using Eating disorder diagnostic scale.
This research was done according to the institutional and international levels and rules. This study was accepted by the Kings College London research ethics