ArticleFrontiers in psychology2025
Meta-analytic prospective associations between self-esteem and eating disorders appear to be spurious: a reanalysis and comment on Krauss et al. (2023).
Article in Frontiers in psychology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.
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Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed.
- The Predictive Level of Body Image and Self-Esteem in Emerging Adulthood on Eating Attitudes: The Mediating Role of Life Satisfaction.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Article
- Physical Activity and Psychonutritional Correlates of Eating Disorder Risk in Female Health Science Students.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Questionable prospective effect of perfectionism on depression: reanalysis of a meta-analytic cross-lagged panel analysis.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Inconclusive evidence for causal effects between rumination and sleep problems: a simulated reanalysis and comment on Yang and Lei (2025).Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
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3 authors.
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Abstract
In a recent meta-analysis, Krauss et al. found support for a reciprocal model of low self-esteem and eating disorders where, in a vicious circle, low self-esteem makes people more vulnerable to developing eating disorders and eating disorders, in turn, scars individuals' self-esteem. However, in the present reanalyses of the same meta-analytic data, we found that the prospective effects between self-esteem and eating disorders are likely spurious, meaning they do not reflect a true causal effect, but rather correlations with residuals and regression to the mean. Consequently, the claims by Krauss et al. can be challenged. To avoid statistical artifacts, we recommend researchers to fit, as we did in the present study, complementary models to their data in order to evaluate if prospective effects may be genuinely increasing or decreasing or if they appear to be spurious.
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