K. Jean Forney
Education
Ph.D., Clinical Psychology, Florida State University, 2018
B.A., Psychology, Miami University, 2011
Research
Dr. Forney is accepting a new Ph.D. student for Fall 2025.
Research Interests
The personal and economic burden of eating disorders is high, contributing to more than 10,000 deaths per year and costing almost $65 billion annually (Deloitte Access Economics, 2020). Although more than 28 million Americans of all genders, sexes, ages, races, and sizes will be affected by an eating disorder in their lifetime, even the best interventions fail to achieve symptom remission in most patients (Linardon, 2018; Linardon et al., 2018; Linardon & Wade, 2018). I have pursued three lines of inquiry to inform interventions to improve health outcomes:
1) Elucidating who is most at risk for an eating disorder (e.g., moderators that increase the salience of established risk factors) to inform prevention efforts;
2) Empirically validating diagnostic categories to improve the prediction of prognosis and to choose the best treatment to deliver;
3) Evaluating causal mechanisms that maintain eating disorder symptoms, such as dietary restriction, to inform novel treatment targets
Featured Links
Grants and Research Funding
Academic Research Enhancement Award, National Institute of Mental Health (R15MH128703) Fear, gastrointestinal distress, and interoception: Physiological and psychological mechanisms in eating disorders; Award Amount: $450,656; 2022-2024. PI: K. Jean Forney, Ph.D.; Co-Is: Christopher R. France, Ph.D. & Chunmin C. Lo, Ph.D.
Selected Recent Journal Publications
*indicates student author
*Hill, N.G., *Jo, J. H., & Forney, K. J. (2024). Testing 鈥渇eeling fat鈥 as a mediator of the longitudinal relationship between negative emotions and eating disorder behaviors. International Journal of Eating Disorders. https://doi.org/10.1002/eat.24270
*Horvath, S. A., Keel, P. K., & Forney, K. J. (2024). Examining negative urgency as a predictor of eating disorder maintenance in purging syndromes. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 80(7), 1607-1617. https://doi.org/10.1002/jclp.23683
Forney, K. J., *Rezeppa, T., *Hill, N., Bodell, L. P., & Brown, T. A. (2024). Examining the placement of atypical anorexia nervosa in the eating disorder diagnostic hierarchy relative to bulimia nervosa and binge-eating disorder. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 57(4), 839-847. https://doi.org/10.1002/eat.24122
Forney, K. J., Burton Murray, H., Brown, T. A., Guadagnoli, L., *Pucci, G., & Taft, T. (2024). Validation of an assessment of hypervigilance and anxiety about gastrointestinal symptoms for individuals with elevated eating pathology. Psychological Assessment, 36(1), 41-52. https://doi.org/10.1037/pas0001280
Forney, K. J., Burton Murray, H., Himawan, L., & Juarascio, A. S. (2023). Preliminary data that psychological treatment and baseline anxiety are associated with a decrease in postprandial fullness and early satiation for individuals with full and related other specified feeding or eating disorder. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 56(12), 2343-2348. https://doi.org/10.1002/eat.24068
Forney, K. J., Rogers, M. L., Grillot, C., Pucci, G.*, Joiner, T. E., & Keel, P. K. (2023). Testing replicability of the relationship between weight suppression and binge eating in three non-clinical samples varying in lifetime weight history 鈥疎ating Behaviors, 50, 101784. doi:10.1016/j.eatbeh.2023.101784
Forney, K. J., Horvath, S. A.*, Pucci, G.*, & Harris, E. R.* (2023). Elevated fullness and bloating as correlates of eating pathology: Implications for screening. Eating Disorders: The Journal of Treatment and Prevention, 31(4), 375-387. doi:10.1080/10640266.2022.2141705
Pucci, G.*, & Forney, K. J. (2022). Associations among perceived taste and smell sensitivity, gastrointestinal symptoms, and restrictive eating in a community sample of adults. Eating Behaviors, 46, 101647. doi: 10.1016/j.eatbeh.2022.101647
Forney, K. J., Brown, T. A., Crosby, R. D., Klein, K. M., & Keel, P. K. (2022). Evaluating the predictive validity of purging disorder by comparison to bulimia nervosa at long-term follow-up. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 55(6). doi: 10.1002/eat.23712
Keel, P. K., Kennedy, G. A., Rogers, M. L., Joyner, K. J., Bodell, L. P., Forney, K. J., & Duffy, M. (2022). Reliability and validity of a transdiagnostic measure of reward valuation effort. Psychological Assessment, 34(5), 419-430. doi: 10.1037/pas0001107
Recent Book Chapters
Bodell, L. P. & Forney, K. J. (2020). The neuroendocrinology of anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. In H. Meiselman (Ed.), Handbook of Eating and Drinking: Interdisciplinary Perspectives. (1259-1280) Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing.
Recent Selected Peer-Reviewed Conference Presentations
*Indicates mentee
*Rezeppa, T., & Forney, K. J. (2024, November). Examining relationships between food insecurity, intuitive eating, and binge eating in college students. Poster to be presented at the 58th Annual Meeting of the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies, Philadelphia, PA.
*Rezeppa, T., & Forney, K. J. (2024, May). Examining neurocognitive differences between women with atypical anorexia nervosa, anorexia nervosa, and healthy controls with weight loss: Preliminary findings. Paper presented at the Midwest Cognitive Science Conference 2024, Athens, OH.
*Hill, N. G., *Jo, J., & Forney, K. J. (2024, March). 鈥淔eeling fat鈥 partially mediates the longitudinal week between negative emotions and binge eating. Paper presented at the 2024 International Conference on Eating Disorders, New York, NY.
Forney, K. J., *Rezeppa, T., *Hill, N. G., Bodell, L. P., & Brown, T. A. (2024, March). Examining the placement of atypical anorexia nervosa in the eating disorder diagnostic hierarchy. Paper presented at the 2024 International Conference on Eating Disorders, New York, NY.
*Rezeppa, T. L., *Pucci, G., *Hill, N., *Jo, J., & Forney, K. J. (2023, November). An evaluation of normative intraday weight fluctuations and correlates to inform weight exposures in cognitive-behavioral therapy for eating disorders. Poster presented at the 57th Annual Meeting of the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies, Seattle, WA
Professional Activities and Associations
Professional Memberships
- Academy of Eating Disorders
- Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies
- American Psychological Association
- Eating Disorders Research Society (Invited Member)
- Society for a Science of Clinical Psychology
Fellowships, Honors, and Awards
- 18 of the Last 9, Miami University Alumni Association, 2019
- Glee Ross Hollander Dissertation Award, 2019
- Young Investigator Award, Assessment & Diagnosis Special Interest Group of the Academy for Eating Disorders, 2018
- P.E.O. Scholar Award, 2016
- American Psychological Association Dissertation Research Award, 2016