Background: Disgust is a basic emotion that has been relatively neglected in psychiatry in general and in eating disorders in particular. Nevertheless, there are features of disgust and its more complex derivatives (e.g., shame) which suggest that disgust may have a role to play in eating disorders.
Method: Seventy-four patients with a DSM-IV diagnosis of anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, eating disorder not otherwise specified, and obese binge eater were compared with 15 control subjects on their levels of disgust sensitivity.
Results: Overall, eating disorder patients did not appear to be more sensitive to disgust-eliciting stimuli than comparison subjects, although there was a tendency for patients to be more disgusted by body products. However, drive for thinness and bulimia scores were related to higher levels of disgust sensitivity to food, death, and magical contagion. General psychopathology did not appear to be related to levels of disgust sensitivity.
Discussion: Although patients are not more sensitive than controls to the disgust-eliciting stimuli measured, disgust still has a positive relationship to eating disorder symptoms. Future studies will need to examine more precisely what this relationship might be.
Copyright 2000 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.