Worry wart: A preregistered, experimental investigation of worry-induced emotional eating and associated psychological characteristics.

The implicit association task as a measure of emotional eating

‘Emotional’ does not even start to cover it: Generalization of overeating in emotional eaters

The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly affected the mental health of individuals due to severe changes in their normal life routines. These changes might give rise to stress-induced factors and result in developing maladaptive behaviors. Therefore, the present study tested an explorative sequential mediation model regarding the COVID-19 pandemic as a global natural experiment and hypothesized that fear and depression would be serial mediators of the relationship between intolerance of uncertainty and emotional eating. An online cross-sectional survey with convenience sampling was adopted. A total of 362 participants were recruited from Turkey, and each completed a battery of demographic questions and psychometric scales. The standardized instruments used to test the model’s constructs were the Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale, Fear of COVID-19 Scale, Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, and Three-Factor Eating Questionnaire-R21. The model was tested using a bootstrapping method utilizing IBM AMOS 24 software. Results showed that emotional eating was positively associated with intolerance of uncertainty, fear of COVID-19, and depression. Moreover, fear of COVID-19 had positive correlation with intolerance of uncertainty and depression. Significant negative association was also found between age and intolerance of uncertainty. In addition, females significantly reported higher levels of emotional eating and fear of COVID-19 than males. The study’s hypothesized sequential mediation model was further supported. It is concluded that depression most likely developed by fear was triggered by intolerance of uncertainty during the COVID-19 pandemic and leading to emotional eating. The study is significant because it advances theories of emotional eating with an investigation examining some of its underlying mechanisms. Also, it is one of a few research studies highlighting to what extent the COVID-19 pandemic-related cognitions and emotions are associated with maladaptive behaviors in the case of emotional eating.

Emotion dys-regulation is thought to be involved in the development and maintenance of emotional eating (EE), notably through its links with anxious and depressive symptoms. AIM: The aims of the study were to: (a) examine the mediating effect of depressive and anxious symptoms on the relationship between emotion dys-regulation and EE in obesity and (b) compare those links with various degrees of obesity severity. One hundred and twenty patients with obesity, including 60 with "n" (MO) (30 ≤ BMI < 40) and 60 with "severe obesity" (SO) (BMI > 40), completed self-report measures of emotion dys-regulation, depression, anxiety and EE. Partial least square structural equation modelling and multi-group analyses were performed. Emotion dys-regulation was found to be significantly associated with EE only when the severity of obesity was taken into account. In addition, although the MO and SO groups reported similar levels of emotional and eating disorders, significant differences were found between the groups in pathways leading to EE. In MO, emotion dys-regulation was only associated with more EE through more anxiety. In SO, emotion dys-regulation was both directly and indirectly associated with more EE, but only through more depression in the latter. Emotion dys-regulation, anxiety and depression do not have the same impact on EE depending on the severity of obesity. Psychotherapeutic interventions should aim at reducing emotion dys-regulation in obesity from MO onwards, but the focus should be on the management of anxiety-related affects in MO and depression-related affects in SO.

Eating when stressed or distressed, different pathways to emotional eating depending on obesity's severity

A systematic review of the relationship between alexithymia and emotional eating in adults

Intolerance-of-uncertainty and anxiety as serial mediators between emotional dysregulation and repetitive patterns in young people with autism

Are we still uncertain about the latent structure of intolerance of uncertainty: Results from factor mixture modeling in a Serbian sample

An enhanced understanding of the dynamics of psychosocial change processes within behavioral weight loss treatments is required to improve their generally poor results. Based on social cognitive theory, self-regulation of eating has the possibility of affecting interrelations between psychosocial correlates of inappropriate eating behaviors such as emotional eating and negative mood. Within behavioral interventions, physical activity, treatment foci, and the length of treatment might moderate those relationships. The aim of this research was to contrast intervention effects based on treatment type, and evaluate interrelations of changes in theory-based psychosocial variables. Adult females with obesity (overall Mage = 48.6 years; overall MBMI = 35.3 kg/m2) were block randomized into groups of 28 weeks of phone-supported manual-based education (Group 1, n = 52), 58 weeks of cognitive-behavioral group treatment (Group 2, n = 52), and 99 weeks of cognitive-behavioral group treatment followed by phone-based reviews of intervention materials (Group 3, n = 48). Significant improvements in measures of emotional eating, negative mood, self-regulation for controlling eating, physical activity, and body composition were found in each group over 3, 6, 12, and 24 months, with generally larger effect sizes detected in Groups 2 and 3. Reciprocal, mutually reinforcing, relationships were found between changes in emotional eating and mood, which were significantly mediated by self-regulation changes. Physical activity level significantly moderated mood changes, treatment foci on emotional eating significantly moderated changes in emotional eating, and treatment length significantly moderated long-term changes in emotional eating, but not mood. Findings support a treatment duration of at least one year that emphasizes physical activity and self-regulatory skills usage, and interrelations between changes in emotional eating, self-regulation, mood, and physical activity.

The role of emotion dysregulation and intolerance of uncertainty in autism: Transdiagnostic factors influencing co-occurring conditions

The mediating role of emotion dysregulation and depression on the relationship between childhood trauma exposure and emotional eating

Corrigendum to “Validation of the Yale Food Addiction Scale among a weight-loss surgery population” [Eating Behaviors 14(2013) 216–219

Validation of the Yale Food Addiction Scale among a weight-loss surgery population

Fear of negative evaluation and intolerance of uncertainty: Assessing potential internalizing correlates of eating disorder-related clinical impairment and differences across diagnostic presentations

The role of intolerance of uncertainty in current and remitted internalizing and externalizing psychopathology