A prospective study of obsessive‐compulsive and borderline personality traits,race and disordered eating

Most previous investigations of the relationship between personality and disordered eating have been cross‐sectional and have utilised relatively homogeneous samples. The current study sought to prospectively explore two specific putative personality risk factors for disordered eating in an ethnically diverse sample of women (n = 58). During the initial and 2‐year follow‐up assessments, semi‐structured diagnostic interviews were administered. Analyses revealed that borderline personality disorder symptoms, as well as an interaction between obsessive‐compulsive personality disorder symptoms and race, significantly predicted disordered eating over a 2‐year period. Obsessive‐compulsive personality pathology was most strongly predictive of disordered eating for the African American women, specifically. These data supported both borderline and obsessive‐compulsive personality pathology as predictors of the development of eating disorder symptoms among women over a 2‐year period in college. In addition, race may be an important consideration in understanding the role of personality in the aetiology of disordered eating. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and Eating Disorders Association.