Understanding Pride in Eating Disorders and Disordered Eating Behaviors: A PRISMA-Informed Scoping Review

TL;DR

This review explores how pride relates to eating disorders and disordered eating, finding that pride can influence symptoms and recovery.

Contribution

The study provides a comprehensive scoping review of pride's role in eating disorders using PRISMA guidelines.

Findings

High maladaptive pride correlates with greater eating disorder symptoms in the general population.

Pride in patients is linked to control and illness identification, affecting disorder maintenance and recovery.

There is a lack of standardized instruments and limited research on bulimia and binge-eating disorder.

Abstract

Background: Pride may play a role in eating disorders and related symptomatology. This PRISMA-informed scoping review explores the emotion of pride in eating disorders and in related symptoms. Methods: Four databases (PubMed, PsycINFO, Web of Science, Scopus) were searched (July 2025). This systematic scoping review followed PRISMA guidelines and PICOS procedures. The included reports were written in English language and assessed pride in relation to eating disorder-related symptoms both in diagnosed individuals and in the general population. Results: Twenty-three studies were selected, including sixteen quantitative and seven qualitative studies. Pride was evaluated in various forms, including appearance-related pride, body pride, and LGBT pride. In general population samples, high levels of maladaptive pride and low levels of adaptive pride were associated with greater eating disorder-related symptomatology. In patients, pride was associated with control and illness identification and was found to contribute to illness onset, maintenance, and recovery. Conclusions: Integrating pride experiences in the assessment of eating disorders may be clinically useful and provide guidance for treatment planning. Main gaps consist in the great heterogeneity of the instruments used to assess pride and in the major focus on anorexia nervosa, with only a few studies investigating bulimia nervosa and binge-eating disorder.

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