Weight-related teasing, dysfunctional cognitions, and symptoms of depression and eating disturbances

Although there is evidence that verbal victimization in childhood may be a nonspecific risk factor for a variety of disorders, there may be mediational pathways that are specific to each disorder. In this study, we hypothesized that disorder-specific cognitions would mediate the relation between reports of childhood verbal victimization and undergraduates' current symptoms of depression and eating disorders. In addition, we hypothesized that a specific type of verbal victimization, weight-related teasing, would be more strongly related to the presence of dysfunctional eating cognitions than depressive cognitions. Both hypotheses were supported, providing preliminary evidence for the hypothesized disorder-specific mediational pathways.