The Relationship Between Parent Attachment and Disordered Eating Behaviors in Adult Men and Women: The Mediation Effects of Body Dissatisfaction Moderated by Gender

Objectives Through online survey, it has progressed a research activity for the effect of parent attachment on the abnormal eating behavior regulated by gender with meditation effect of body dissatisfaction. Methods As subject of research,it collects the data from 430 adults between 20- to 39-year-old men and women. After completing questionnaires for the parent attachment and body dissatisfaction, and the Korean table manner, it analyzes the data by SPAA 21.0 and Mplus 7.0 program. In relationship between the parent attachment and the abnormal eating behavior, the 3 verification stage steps of meditation effect is applied for mediation effect of body dissatisfaction, moreover, the meditation effect is revalidated by the Sobel test. Also, it conductsthe hierarchical analysis to verify the gender regulation effect on relationship between the body dissatisfaction and abnormal eating behavior and it conducts the simple slope analysis to verify the aspect of meditation effect. To verify the regulated meditationeffect, it applies the bootstrapping to estimate the significance of indirect effect and it considers the amount of meditation effect according to a level of moderating variable. Results First, it was found that body dissatisfaction partially mediated the relationship between parental attachment and abnormal eating behavior. Second, the relationship between parental attachment and body dissatisfaction was found to vary according to gender. Third, the effect of parental attachment on abnormal eating behavior through body dissatisfaction was different according to gender, indicating that the controlled mediating effect was significant. Conclusions Combining the above results, it can be seen that there is a difference between men and women in the effect of body dissatisfaction due to parental attachment on abnormal eating behavior, so the intervention method according to gender should be different in treatment.