Daily Associations Between Positive Emotion and Obesity-Related Behaviors and Their Interconnections Within Adolescent-Caregiver Dyads

Positive Emotion Is Associated with Attentional Focus on Physical Activity and Eating in Adolescents: A Daily Diary Study

BACKGROUND

There are emerging data linking positive emotion to health behaviors, yet the self-regulatory processes underlying this link are understudied. The purpose of the current study was to examine the associations between daily positive emotion and daily attentional focus on physical activity and overeating as well as the moderating role of trait positive emotion arousal recovery.

METHOD

Adolescents (N = 47) aged 11 to 17 completed a baseline measure of their perceived positive emotion arousal regulation and a 7-day diary about their positive emotion and attentional focus.

RESULTS

Both within-person increases in and greater average daily approach-oriented positive emotion were associated with greater daily attentional focus on physical activity and overeating. Quicker perceived trait approach-oriented positive emotion arousal recovery dampened the association between within-person increases in daily approach-motivated positive emotion and daily attentional focus on overeating but not physical activity.

CONCLUSION

Positive emotion can elicit a narrowing of attentional focus towards emotionally salient health behavior. Future studies should examine the full mechanistic pathway linking positive emotion to health behavior via attentional focus and arousal recovery.

Negative emodiversity is associated with emotional eating in adolescents: An examination of emotion dynamics in daily life

INTRODUCTION

Emotional eating is a mental health concern, common in adolescents, that develops as a result of their tendency to use high-energy food to regulate their fluctuating emotions. Due to their highly fluctuating emotional life, adolescents tend to have unique within-person profiles of emotional experiences that change across moments and days, often lost in global assessments of emotions. Hence, it is imperative to examine individual differences in dynamics of emotions, as experienced in daily life, in relation to emotional eating in adolescents.

METHODS

In an Ecological Momentary Assessment study, we examined individual differences in three within-person dynamic characteristics (baseline levels, intraindividual variability, and emodiversity) of emotions in 158 dominantly Hispanic adolescents in the United States, aged 14-17 years old, predicting trait-level emotional eating.

RESULTS

Results indicated that higher negative emodiversity, baselines, and variability in stress were predictive of emotional eating in adolescents. When all considered together, negative emodiversity (i.e., variety of the types of negative emotions experienced in one's daily life) remained the only significant predictor of emotional eating.

CONCLUSIONS

This study affirms the importance of diversity in emotional experiences in relation to emotional eating, particularly in daily contexts of adolescents' lives. Additionally, the study emphasizes the importance of distinguishing between diversity (i.e., variety in types) in positive versus negative emotional experiences with regard to emotional eating. By taking into account the ecological validity of adolescents' daily lives and individual differences in dynamical changes in emotions, we are taking a step forward by shedding light on how the dynamics of negative emotions-in terms of within-person baselines, variability, and diversity-might be related to general levels of emotional eating in adolescents.

The role of COVID-19 fears and related behaviors in understanding daily adolescent health behaviors during the pandemic

We examined the prospective associations of COVID-19 fears and behavior, and daily physical activity and dysregulated eating. Adolescents (N = 31) aged 11-17 completed selected subscales of the Fear of Illness and Virus Evaluation and completed a 7-day health behavior diary. Greater fear of contamination was associated with lower daily physical activity. In contrast, greater COVID-19 precautionary behavior was associated with greater daily physical activity. COVID-19 fears and precautionary behaviors have differential associations with health promoting behavior engagement. Future studies should explore the mechanisms underlying these links to guide adaptation of health behavior interventions for this unique cohort.