The present study sought to investigate the association between selective attentional processing of body images, rumination, and eating disorder symptoms in young women. Seventy-three undergraduate female students (ages 17–24) completed a modified dot-probe task to assess whether young women showed a differential attentional bias pattern towards thin and non-thin female bodies. Participants also completed self-report measures of eating disorder pathology. It was found that increased reports of dietary restraint and body dissatisfaction were associated with both greater attentional bias towards thin bodies and avoidance of non-thin bodies (as compared to neutral images), although the former relationship was stronger than the latter. The results suggest attentional vigilance to thin-ideal images plays a greater role in the potential development and/or maintenance of eating disorder symptoms, at least in a university sample of young women. Results also revealed that eating disorder-specific rumination mediated the relationship between attentional bias to thin ideal images and eating disorder symptoms. These findings build on existing research and theories, for example the impaired disengagement model of rumination, and have potential clinical applications such as specifically targeting ruminative and/or attentional processes in the prevention and/or treatment of eating disorder symptoms.

Internalization of sociocultural attitudes regarding the so-called virtues of thinness and vices of fatness can lead to two motivational orientations: drive for thinness and fear of fat. The current study assessed drive for thinness and fear of fat, via approach and avoidance motivation towards thin-ideal and non-thin bodies respectively, and also the relation between these approach-avoidance tendencies and key eating disorder-related constructs. Participants were 95 female undergraduate students. Results revealed an approach bias for thin-ideal bodies and an avoidance bias for non-thin bodies. Furthermore, a greater approach bias towards thin-ideal bodies was associated with greater body dissatisfaction, thin-ideal internalization, and dietary restraint whilst controlling for body mass index. An avoidance bias away from non-thin bodies did not significantly correlate with any eating disorderrelated constructs. These findings imply that drive for thinness may be more relevant than fear of fat as a risk factor for eating disorder symptoms in women.