In-person and cyber sexual violence are common in young women who have eating disordered symptoms.

Abstract

This study explored the relationship between eating disordered symptoms and in-person (ISV) and cyber sexual violence (CSV) by recruiting young women (N = 145) on Prolific with current eating disordered symptoms. Having experienced some sexual violence was ubiquitous (91.7%), and 73.8% of the participants had experienced both ISV plus CSV, suggesting that a history of polyvictimization is common in this population. The number of total types of polyvictimization was correlated with eating disordered symptom severity (EDE-Q-13). For each sub-categorical ISV and CSV type of violence, women were asked if it occurred before, during, or after their disordered eating began with 87% reporting ISV and CSV victimization preceded dysfunctional eating. This study documents the pervasiveness of sexual violence among women and links eating disordered symptom severity to multiple types of sexual violence experiences. Further, this study displays how sexual violence experiences occurred prior to eating dysfunction for most of these women with a victimization history. Given the rise in social media use allowing for more CSV, this is a timely study with eating disorder prevention and treatment implications using trauma-informed approaches.