1. Introduction
anxiety, cognitive and behavioural mechanisms, binge eating disorders, weight gain, psychiatric, Anorexia nervosa, eating disorder, anorexia nervosa, food-specific disgust, AN, eating
DISORDER
The emotion of disgust is thought to play a critical role in maintaining restrictive eating among individuals with anorexia nervosa. This exploratory cross-sectional study examined correlations between food-specific trait and state disgust, eating disorder psychopathology, illness severity (body mass index: BMI), and interactions with virtual foods in people with anorexia nervosa. Food-specific trait disgust and eating disorder symptoms were measured before exposure to virtual foods in one of three virtual reality (VR) kitchens to which participants were randomly allocated. Food interactions (eye gaze and reaching towards virtual foods) were measured during the VR exposure. Food-specific state disgust ratings were collected after the VR exposure. In the entire sample, eating disorder symptoms correlated positively with food-specific trait disgust (rs (68) = 0.45, Anorexia nervosa (AN) is a psychiatric disorder defined by a persistent and pervasive tendency of food avoidance. Exposure to food- or eating-related cues is associated with expected negative consequences (e.g., losing control, weight gain) and aversive emotions [Both state and trait forms of food-specific disgust may play a key role in shaping cognitive and behavioural mechanisms underlying AN symptomatology. For example, attentional or behavioural bias for food in AN has been studied using behavioural tasks and eye-tracking paradigms [It is critical to explore relevant attentional and behavioural patterns linked to food disgust and eating disorder symptoms in AN for the development of treatment plans targeting disgust as well as anxiety or fear. Recently, virtual reality has been utilised as a practical research tool in the assessment of food-related attentional and behavioural mechanisms—for example, in people with binge eating disorders [