Stability and change in patterns of concerns related to eating, weight, and shape in young adult women: A latent transition analysis.

Abstract

Although college women are known to be at high risk for eating-related problems, relatively little is known about how various aspects of concerns related to eating, weight, and shape are patterned syndromally in this population. Moreover, the extent to which various patterns represent stable conditions or transitory states during this dynamic period of development is unclear. The current study used latent class and latent transition analysis (LCA/LTA) to derive syndromes of concerns related to eating, weight, and shape and movement across these syndromes in a sample of 1,498 women ascertained as first-time freshmen and studied over four years. LCA identified five classes characterized by: (1) no obvious pathological eating-related concerns (prevalence: 28 to 34%); (2) a high likelihood of limiting attempts (prevalence: 29 to 34%); (3) a high likelihood of overeating (prevalence: 14 to 18%); (4) a high likelihood of limiting attempts and overeating or binge eating (prevalence: 14 to 17%); and (5) pervasive bulimic-like concerns (prevalence: 6 to 7%). Membership in each latent class tended to be stable over time. When movement occurred, it tended to be to a less severe class. These findings indicate that there are distinct, prevalent, and relatively stable forms of eating-related concerns in college women.

Eating disorder behaviours amongst adolescents: investigating classification, persistence and prospective associations with adverse outcomes using latent class models

“…A Norwegian study investigated empirically derived categories of ED behaviours in 623 adolescent girls and found that ED behaviour clusters were not stable over 7 years[16]. A larger study on young adults identified more stable DE patterns in older US female college students[17]. …”

Mixture Modeling Methods for the Assessment of Normal and Abnormal Personality, Part II: Longitudinal Models

“…Some individuals show a remitting course of psychopathology symptoms, whereas others remain chronically impaired (e.g., Hallquist & Lenzenweger, 2013; Stoolmiller, Kim, & Capaldi, 2005). Some patients exhibit rapid shifts in their symptomatic profile over time (e.g., depression gives way to generalized anxiety and back again), whereas others are steady in their form of impairment (Cain, Epler, Steinley, & Sher, 2010; Lanza & Collins, 2008; Read, Bachrach, Wright, & Colder, 2013). Quantifying both the normative pattern of intra individual change and any inter individual heterogeneity in longitudinal trajectories is important because it can elucidate psychological processes and mechanisms that underlie change.…”

“…Thus, LTA differs from RMLCA, which applies a standard LCA to repeated measures of one variable. To date, LTA has only been used in one longitudinal personality study (Meeus, van de Schoot, Klimstra, & Branje, 2011), although a number of illustrative exemplars exist in psychopathology research (e.g., Cain et al, 2010; Chung, Park, & Lanza, 2005; Read et al, 2013). One likely reason that LTA has been applied to personality data so infrequently is that modern personality research has been overwhelmingly focused on dimensions as opposed to types (see e.g., Hallquist & Wright, this issue).…”

A Monte Carlo investigation of factors influencing latent class analysis: An application to eating disorder research

“…[3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11] However, these nine studies vary considerably in terms of sample composition and analytic strategy. Two of the studies 7,9 used unique sets of indicators that were not eating disorder symptoms while two additional studies 8,10 involved community samples that included a majority of healthy subjects with minimal endorsement of symptoms; these four studies were not used in defining the true model. The remaining five studies focused on either treatment-seeking samples 5,11 or subsets of community samples that exhibited at least some disordered eating symptoms.…”

“…These techniques have particular relevance for the field of eating disorder research, where much recent attention has focused on establishing the validity of systems for classifying eating disorders 1 and revising diagnostic criteria for DSM-5. 2 A number of studies have utilized LCA [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11] or LPA [12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26] to identify eating disorder phenotypes. However, despite the recent popularity of these methods in the field of eating disorders, little consideration has been…”