Abstract
Drunorexia refers to food calorie intake restriction to prevent weight gain and the desire to enhance the more extensive intoxicating effects of alcohol. The present study aimed to investigate the association of drunkorexia with emotion regulation as well as emotion regulation difficulties across the Lebanese population, and assess disordered eating attitudes as a potential mediator of these relationships. The cross-sectional study enrolled participants (n = 258) from all Lebanese districts. The study was performed through an online survey based on a self-designed and structured questionnaire. The Drunkorexia Motives and Behaviors Scales (DMBS), the College Life Alcohol Salience Scale (CLASS), the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS-16), the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ) and the Eating Attitudes Test (EAT-26) were used in the present study. The results showed that higher EAT-26 total scores (more disordered eating attitudes) (B = 0.16) and higher DERS-16 total score (B = 0.30) were significantly associated with more drunkorexia motives. Also, higher EAT-26 total scores (B = 0.09) and higher DERS-16 total score (B = 0.17) were significantly associated with more drunkorexia behaviors. In addition, higher EAT-26 total scores (B = 0.10) and higher DERS-26 total score (B = 0.36) were significantly associated with more drunkorexia fails. Furthermore, higher EAT-26 total scores (B = 0.07), and higher DERS-16 total score (B = 0.37) were significantly associated with more drunkorexia during an alcohol consumption event. Higher EAT-26 total scores (B = 0.09), and higher DERS-16 total score (B = 0.22) were significantly associated with more post-drinking compensation. Higher EAT-26 total scores (B = 0.21), higher DERS-16 total scores (B = 0.65) and higher emotion regulation (B = 0.33) were significantly associated with higher CLASS scores. The results showed that EAT-26 total scores partially mediated the association between DERS-16 total score and drunkorexia motives (25.20%), between DERS-16 total score and drunkorexia behaviors (25.16%), between DERS-16 total score and drunkorexia fails (106.87%), between DERS-16 total score and drunkorexia during an alcohol consumption event (11.84%), between DERS-16 total score and post-drinking compensation (22.55%), between ERQ total score and college life alcohol salience (8.35%) and between DERS-16 total score and college life alcohol salience (20.14%). This study highlighted that only emotional regulation difficulties were associated with drunkorexia, whereas emotional regulation was not significantly associated with such behavior.
Highlights
Over the last few years, researchers have sounded the alarm about an upsurge in binge drinking behavior
The findings revealed that adolescents who indulge in drunkorexia behavior lacked adaptive measures to effectively control impulsive behavior when undergoing negative emotional states and experienced difficulties in understanding their emotions
The results of the fourth linear regression, taking the drunkorexia during alcohol consumption on events score as the dependent variable, showed that higher EAT-26 total scores (B = 0.07; 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.03–0.11; p < 0.001), and higher DERS-16 total score
Summary
Over the last few years, researchers have sounded the alarm about an upsurge in binge drinking behavior. Calorie restriction to prevent weight gain and a desire to enhance the intoxicating effects of alcohol have been identified as the primary motives underlying this disorder [2] This behavioral pattern has been called “Drunkorexia”, a non-medical term firstly introduced in 2008 by Chambers [3] and later labeled “alcoholimia”, by the medical community [4,5,6]. In the context of previous studies, it has become compelling to thoroughly investigate whether individuals who are unable to reduce their emotional arousals effectively and express their negative emotions adaptively are more likely to engage in eating disordered behaviors and compensatory weight control strategies, a core component of drunkorexia. The present study aimed to investigate the association of drunkorexia with emotion regulation (measured by the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire) as well as emotion regulation difficulties (measured by the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale) the across the Lebanese population, and assess disordered eating attitudes as a potential mediator of these relationships
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