Average university students’ moral assessments towards females with eating disorders

To examine whether university students rate differently in the moral evaluations of the three major eating disorders (anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge eating disorder). And whether the concept that ‘thinness is associated with highly firm and self-disciplined’ acted as mediators to influence the moral assessment results. 114 university students who could read English filled out three evaluations about AN, BN and BED. Results revealed that AN was viewed as morally superior to both BN and BED, and there was no significant difference between BN and BED in moral evaluation. Moral principle “Firm” significantly affected the moral assessment between AN and BN, while “Self-disciplined” successfully explained the moral differences between AN and BED. Findings suggest young adults know little about the underlying psychopathology of eating disorders, and the stigmatization towards bulimics still exists.