Editing Eating disorder (section)

==== Cognitive attentional bias ====
[[Attentional bias]] may have an effect on eating disorders. Attentional bias is the preferential attention toward certain types of information in the environment while simultaneously ignoring others. Individuals with eating disorders can be thought to have schemas, knowledge structures, which are dysfunctional as they may bias judgement, thought, behaviour in a manner that is self-destructive or maladaptive.<ref name=":3">{{cite journal |vauthors=Williamson DA, Muller SL, Reas DL, Thaw JM |title=Cognitive bias in eating disorders: implications for theory and treatment |journal=Behavior Modification |volume=23 |issue=4 |pages=556–77 |date=October 1999 |pmid=10533440 |doi=10.1177/0145445599234003 |s2cid=36189809 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/12768068}}</ref> They may have developed a disordered schema which focuses on body size and eating. Thus, this information is given the highest level of importance and overvalued among other cognitive structures. Researchers have found that people who have eating disorders tend to pay more attention to stimuli related to food. For people struggling to recover from an eating disorder or addiction, this tendency to pay attention to certain signals while discounting others can make recovery that much more difficult.<ref name=":3" />

Studies have utilized the Stroop task to assess the probable effect of attentional bias on eating disorders. This may involve separating food and eating words from body shape and weight words. Such studies have found that anorexic subjects were slower to colour name food related words than control subjects.<ref>{{cite journal |vauthors=Faunce GJ |title=Eating disorders and attentional bias: a review |journal=Eating Disorders |volume=10 |issue=2 |pages=125–39 |date=2002-06-01 |pmid=16864253 |doi=10.1080/10640260290081696 |s2cid=33900087}}</ref> Other studies have noted that individuals with eating disorders have significant attentional biases associated with eating and weight stimuli.<ref>{{cite journal |vauthors=Aspen V, Darcy AM, Lock J |title=A review of attention biases in women with eating disorders |journal=Cognition & Emotion |volume=27 |issue=5 |pages=820–38 |date=August 2013 |pmid=23228135 |pmc=3610839 |doi=10.1080/02699931.2012.749777}}</ref>