Reported childhood sexual abuse and eating-disordered cognitions and behaviors.

Links have been proposed between childhood sexual abuse and the development of eating disorders (e.g., Fallon & Wonderlich, 1997; Root & Fallon, 1989). However, the reported prevalence of such trauma in the eating-disordered population varies widely across studies, due to differences in definitions, methodologies and tools used (Welch & Fairburn, 1994). Given the similar prevalences of reported sexual abuse in eating-disordered patients, female psychiatric controls, and non-psychiatric controls, some researchers have concluded that there is no specific relationship between sexual abuse and the eating disorders (Pope & Hudson, 1992; Welch & Fairburn, 1994). However, while there appears to be no straightforward causal link between childhood sexual abuse and the simple presence of an eating disorder, there does appear to be evidence for more complex relationships between abuse and specific bulimic behaviors and eating attitudes. For example, when one compares diagnostic subgroups of eatingdisordered patients, the prevalence of childhood sexual abuse is unusually low among restrictive anorexics, but high among women with disorders involving bulimic behaviors (e.g., Steiger & Zanko, 1990; Waller, Halek, & Crisp, 1993). Bingeing and purging behaviors appear to regulate disturbing cognitions and emotions, which can arise from an abuse history (e.g., Root and Fallon, 1989). Similar links appear to be found with other behaviors that can be characterized as assisting in the blocking of intolerable emotional