Does anxiety about health influence eating patterns and shape-related body checking among females?

In clinical practice, patients who have elevated worries about health often report a desire to diet and a preoccupation with body shape; furthermore, they report that information about dieting can trigger significant health anxiety. To date, there has been no research that has systematically investigated the relationships among elevated health anxiety, eating patterns, and body shape preoccupation. In this study, 122 female participants completed measures of health anxiety, eating patterns, and body checking. Participants were also randomly given either positive (n = 59) or negative (n = 63) information about the effects of dieting on health allowing us to examine the consequences of receiving differential dieting information on health anxious and non-health anxious individuals. Health anxiety was positively correlated with dieting and food preoccupation; it was also correlated with body checking to assess shape. Analysis of variance showed that after reading both positive and negative information about dieting, individuals highly health anxious experienced greater concern about their health and a greater desire to diet and exercise than individuals with lower levels of health anxiety. Further research should explore dieting and body shape checking as behavioural responses to health anxiety, and, clinically, practitioners should consider monitoring these behaviours when assessing and treating health anxiety.