Temporal Associations Between Body Checking and Eating Pathology in Adolescent Girls with Binge-Spectrum Eating Disorders: Protocol for an Ecological Momentary Assessment Study
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background: Up to 92% of individuals with eating disorders (EDs) report engaging in body checking behaviors (eg, repeated self-weighing and pinching of various body parts) to assess their weight and shape. These behaviors contribute to increased body dissatisfaction, negative affect, and dietary restriction, thereby maintaining ED symptomology. Objective: This study aims to first characterize the types and frequency of body checking behaviors (eg, self-weighing, pinching) reported among adolescent girls with binge-spectrum EDs during a 21-day ecological momentary assessment (EMA) protocol. The second aim is to explore the prospective associations between body checking and cognitive and behavioral ED symptoms, namely body dissatisfaction, fear of weight gain, dietary restraint, dietary restriction, compensatory behaviors, and binge eating. The third aim is to assess whether body checking behaviors show reactive effects (ie, produces change in the behavior subject to monitoring) to EMA, such that they decrease over time. Methods: The study will recruit 70 adolescent girls aged 14 to 19 years with clinically significant binge eating. Participants will complete a semistructured interview and a series of self-report measures at baseline to assess ED pathology. Then, participants will complete 5 daily EMA surveys to track body checking behaviors and related ED symptoms over 21 days. Results: Recruitment began in January 2025, with data collection expected to conclude in March 2026. Linear and generalized mixed-effects models will be used to evaluate concurrent and prospective associations between various ED symptoms. Conclusions: This study will provide insights into the patterns and impacts of body checking behaviors among adolescent girls with binge-spectrum EDs. If body checking behaviors reduce in response to EMA, digital self-monitoring could be a scalable and cost-effective strategy for ED treatment and prevention. The findings may also inform the development of momentary interventions targeting body checking behaviors to mitigate ED symptoms. Future research should extend these observations over longer periods and include male participants to generalize findings across genders.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.019 | 0.013 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.004 | 0.003 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.004 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.004 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.019 | 0.004 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".