The Struggle Continues: Addressing Concerns About Eating and Weight for Older Women’s Well-Being

Body Dissatisfaction, Eating Styles, Weight-Related Behaviors, and Health among Young Women in the United States

Body dissatisfaction is a common condition that poses health behavior risks, such as the use of maladaptive eating styles instead of adaptive eating styles. Few studies have simultaneously examined both adaptive and maladaptive eating styles and their association with body dissatisfaction in a comprehensive manner. To address this gap, this study examined how body dissatisfaction is related to an array of adaptive and maladaptive eating styles, weight-related behaviors, and health status as well as the associations of health status, BMI, and weight-related behaviors with body dissatisfaction in 261 young adult women. Maladaptive eating styles, such as emotional eating, tended to rise in tandem with body dissatisfaction, differing significantly among body-dissatisfaction levels with medium to large effect sizes. For adaptive eating styles, as body dissatisfaction increased, compensatory restraint increased, intuitive eating declined, and mindful eating did not differ. Weight-related dietary, physical activity, and sleep behaviors did not differ by body dissatisfaction level. BMI increased and health status decreased as body dissatisfaction increased. Binary logistic regression revealed those who were body-dissatisfied had significantly lower health status, higher BMIs, and did not differ on weight-related behaviors. Study findings suggest strategies to improve health-promotion interventions aiming to increase body satisfaction.

The moderating effects of mindful eating on the relationship between emotional functioning and eating styles in overweight and obese women

PURPOSE

The aim of the current study was to examine the moderating effect of mindful eating on the relationship between emotional functioning and eating styles in overweight and obese women.

METHODS

One hundred and eighty four overweight and obese adult women (BMI 30.12 ± 3.77 kg/m²) were assessed with the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale, the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule, the Three Factor Eating Questionnaire and the Mindful Eating Scale.

RESULTS

Mindful eating significantly moderated several of the relationships between emotional functioning and eating styles. At all levels of mindful eating, emotion dysregulation and negative affect are both associated with greater emotional eating, but with stronger associations for high levels of mindful eating. For people low in mindful eating, both emotion dysregulation and negative affect are associated with lower restrictive eating, and neither of them are associated with uncontrolled eating. For people high in mindful eating, neither emotion dysregulation nor negative affect are associated with restrictive eating, and only negative affect is associated with greater uncontrolled eating.

CONCLUSION

When mindful eating techniques are included as part of an intervention for overweight or obese individuals, it is even more important that those interventions should also include techniques to reduce emotion dysregulation and negative affect.

LEVEL OF EVIDENCE

Level V, descriptive study.