Registered report: A pilot investigation of acute exercise response among girls and young women with and without eating disorders.

OBJECTIVE Driven exercise (DEx) is a serious and common feature of eating disorders (EDs), but current understanding of factors that give rise to and maintain DEx is limited. DEx may be reinforced through its effects on the threat reduction and reward systems. The current protocol is designed to evaluate acute psychobiological response to exercise among female participants (age 16-22) with and without EDs. METHOD Twenty medically-stable participants with restrictive-spectrum EDs and 20 healthy control (HC) participants will complete study screening and three task visits which will include two 30-minute bouts of aerobic exercise. RESULTS We aim to validate and demonstrate feasibility of two tasks capturing exercise response in this sample. Further, we will estimate the degree to which a bout of exercise impacts state body image, affect, and circulating concentrations of biological markers among participants, and we will examine whether the impact of exercise on psychological outcomes may differ across ED and HC groups. DISCUSSION Completion of this project will contribute to the conceptualization of DEx and how individuals' acute biological and affective responses to exercise contribute to risk for and maintenance of DEx.