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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychol.

Sec. Eating Behavior

Disordered Eating Behaviors Among Female Undergraduates in Sichuan, China: Key Associated Factors from a Province-Wide Survey

Provisionally accepted
Danli HeDanli He1,2Ching Sin SiauChing Sin Siau2*HUI CHIN KOOHUI CHIN KOO3Choy Qing ChamChoy Qing Cham2Masoumeh AlaviMasoumeh Alavi4Agnes Chong Shu SzeAgnes Chong Shu Sze2Harvinder Kaur Gilcharan SinghHarvinder Kaur Gilcharan Singh2*
  • 1Centre for Health Education and Counselling, School of Foreign Languages, Yibin University, Yibin, China
  • 2Centre for Community Health Studies, Faculty of Health Sciences, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
  • 3Faculty of Applied Sciences, Tunku Abdul Rahman University of Management and Technology, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
  • 4School of Applied Psychology, Griffith University, Griffith, Australia

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Background: Female undergraduates are at elevated risk for developing eating disorder symptoms. This cross-sectional study examined predictors of three disordered eating behaviors—uncontrolled eating, emotional eating, and cognitive restraint—among Chinese female undergraduates. Methods: A total of 1,727 participants (mean age = 19.7 ± 1.5 years) completed a web-based survey assessing demographics, sociocultural pressures, body dissatisfaction, fatness concern, body image flexibility, and disordered eating behaviors. Binary logistic regression was used to identify predictors. Results: Over half of the participants reported high levels of disordered eating behaviors. Uncontrolled eating was significantly associated with older age, higher perceived sociocultural pressures, lower body image flexibility, studying at China West Normal University, and fatness concern. Emotional eating was associated with higher sociocultural pressures, body dissatisfaction and fatness concern. Cognitive restraint was associated with higher sociocultural pressures, fatness concern, and body dissatisfaction. Participants who saw themselves as too fat had higher odds of showing emotional eating and cognitive restraint, while those who felt too thin had lower odds of showing cognitive restraint. This is a provisional file, not the final typeset article Conclusions: Sociocultural pressure, body dissatisfaction, and weight-related concerns were key predictors of disordered eating behaviors, highlighting the need for multifaceted interventions tailored to these psychological and sociocultural factors.

Keywords: Body image flexibility, body imagedissatisfaction, Disordered eating behaviors, fatness concern, Female undergraduates, perceived sociocultural pressures

Received: 05 Aug 2025; Accepted: 30 Jan 2026.

Copyright: © 2026 He, Siau, KOO, Cham, Alavi, Chong Shu Sze and Gilcharan Singh. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence:
Ching Sin Siau
Harvinder Kaur Gilcharan Singh

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Supplementary Material