Interpersonal Violence And Rural Adolescents’ Body Image Perceptions, Eating Disordered Behaviors, And Body Mass Indices

This epidemiological study examined how interpersonal violence (IPV) relates to poor body image, eating disorder behavior, and body weight in adolescents from rural Appalachia in Western North Carolina using the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Survey in 2011-2012. Multinomial logistic regression found rural female adolescents with both physical and sexual IPV histories were at higher risk for poor body image (Odds Ratio [OR] = 6.00), restricting food (OR = 3.47), purging (OR = 14.70), and diet pills (OR = 7.44) relative to those without a history of these two types of IPV. Male adolescents with a history of physical IPV, versus those without, were at higher risk for diet pill use (OR = 4.23). As such, longitudinal research is needed to identify the longitudinal ramifications of victimization in rural adolescents. Additionally, intervention programs would benefit from identifying the temporal relationship between a combined history of physical and sexual IPV so as to inform programs of intervention that may be able to destigmatize discussion of healthy dating and unhealthy IPV.