The Association Between Emotional Clarity and Disordered Eating is Mediated by Flexible Emotion Regulation: A Daily-Diary Study in Youth

Objective: Emotional clarity is linked to disordered eating behaviors, which often emergeduring adolescence. Previous research suggests that emotion regulation (ER) is impacted by emotional clarity and associated with eating behaviors simultaneously. This study tests whether the negative association between adolescents' daily emotional clarity and disordered eating behaviors (i.e., weight concerns and restrictive eating) is mediated by their ER flexibility. Method: In a community sample of 187 adolescents (Mage = 12.96 years, 54.6% biologically female), we collected daily reports on emotional clarity, the use of eleven ER strategies in response to negative and positive affect, weight concerns, and restrictive eating. We applied a flexibility framework to the measurement of ER by using a recently introduced novel index, namely the maladaptive (vs. all) ER strategy ratio. Results: Multilevel mediation models showed that lower-than-usual daily emotional clarity was associated with increased weight concerns and restrictive eating, both of which were fully (for restrictive eating) or partly (for weight concerns) mediated by inflexible ER, i.e., a higher maladaptive (vs. all) ER strategy ratio. These results held when controlling for age, sex, and body mass index. Discussion: This study provides empirical validation for a recently introduced novel measure of flexible ER in the context of disordered eating in youths and elucidates a mechanism through which emotional clarity influences eating psychopathology.