Ross D. Crosby: Scholar, teacher, mentor, and friend. Introducing a virtual issue honoring the contributions of Ross D. Crosby to the field of eating disorders

Abstract

scholarly publication record comprises over 400 peerreviewed manuscripts, a quarter of them published in the International Journal of Eating Disorders (IJED). Though remarkable by itself for the sheer quantity of research papers, Dr. Crosby's publication record is all the more noteworthy for its breadth of topics and rigor of methodology. Dr. Crosby has played a key role in the design and execution of a diverse set of research projects addressing the full range of questions that have begged for scientific inquiry. In keeping with the EDRS' mission to convene an annual meeting where researchers from across the globe present and discuss novel study methods, emerging scientific ideas, and important trends or findings, the virtual issue has been assembled to represent Dr. Crosby's most current IJED publications.Among Dr. Crosby's signature achievements is the exploration of clinical phenomena in "real time" and in "real world" settings (Ranzenhofer et al., 2016) such as the development and application of ecological momentary assessment (EMA) to the study of eating disorder pathology (see, e.g., Fitzsimmons-Craft et al., 2015;Smyth et al., 2001Smyth et al., , 2009White et al., 2016). Therefore, no anthology of his work would be complete without an example of this line of research. For example, a sample of 118 women with a diagnosis of anorexia nervosa or subthreshold anorexia nervosa completed EMA records for two weeks, reporting on momentary affective experiences and a range of eating behaviors. Findings suggested a clear patterning by time of day of affective and behavioral symptoms, thus suggesting that tailoring intervention strategies to the high-risk time periods for experiencing negative affect or engaging in disordered eating behaviors may improve treatment outcome or reduce risk of relapse (Lavender et al., 2016).Yet, as the collection of studies included in this virtual issue amply illustrates, EMA studies represent only a subset of Dr. Crosby's research efforts. As the leading journal in the field, IJED has published numerous studies exploring the need for and, more recently, the impact of the changes in the eating disorder criteria in the 5th revision of the Findings suggest that a seven-item, three-factor version (reflecting dietary restraint, shape/weight overvaluation, and body dissatisfaction) met criteria for goodness of fit and invariance and captures equivalently the eating pathology of Black and White youth. As has been shown in other studies, regardless of race/ethnicity, girls were more likely to report eating disorder symptoms than were boys; moreover, race moderated the association between adiposity and eating pathology in that at higher adiposity White youth reported greater eating dis- Using statistically derived personality clusters ("under-controlled,""over-controlled," and "low psychopathology" subtypes) in a sample of 80 patients enrolled in the aforementioned treatment trial, personality subtype significantly predicted binge eating and purging frequency at end of treatment, and frequenc...