These data show that self-reports of height and weight are inaccurate in a way that skews any research that depends on them. The errors are influenced by eating psychopathology. These findings highlight the importance of obtaining objective height and weight data, particularly when comparing those data with those of patients with eating disorders.

No abstract

This study explored relationships between perspective-taking, emotion understanding, and children's narrative abilities. Younger (23 5-/6-year-olds) and older (24 7-/8-year-olds) children generated fictional narratives, using a wordless picture book, about a frog experiencing jealousy. Children's emotion understanding was assessed through a standardized test of emotion comprehension and their ability to convey the jealousy theme of the story. Perspective-taking ability was assessed with respect to children's use of narrative evaluation (i.e., narrative coherence, mental state language, supplementary evaluative speech, use of subjective language, and placement of emotion expression). Older children scored higher than younger children on emotion comprehension and on understanding the story's complex emotional theme, including the ability to identify a rival. They were more advanced in perspective-taking abilities, and selectively used emotion expressions to highlight story episodes. Subjective perspective taking and narrative coherence were predictive of children's elaboration of the jealousy theme. Use of supplementary evaluative speech, in turn, was predictive of both subjective perspective taking and narrative coherence. © 2010 The British Psychological Society

The narcissistic defenses are particularly relevant in understanding the eating disorders. Implications for future research are outlined, and suggestions are made about the need to assess and respond to these associations in treatment.

Patients with eating disorders have been shown to experience the emotional components of alexithymia-difficulties in identifying and describing emotions. In keeping with cognitive theories, which stress the role of schema-level beliefs in understanding emotions, this study examined the core beliefs that are associated with this difficulty in women with eating disorders. Seventy eating-disordered women completed standardised measures of core beliefs and alexithymia. There were no differences in alexithymia between diagnostic groups, so the women were treated as a single, transdiagnostic group. Multiple regression analyses showed specific patterns of association between the core beliefs and the emotional elements of alexithymia. Difficulties in identifying emotions were associated with entitlement beliefs, while difficulties in describing emotions were associated with both abandonment and emotional inhibition beliefs. These findings suggest that it may be necessary to work with core beliefs in order to reduce levels of alexithymia, prior to addressing the emotions that drive and maintain pathological eating behaviours.