Pleasure or pain? Higher emotional dysregulation and both hedonic and emotional eating in women with different levels of binge-eating episodes

Purpose Binge eating involves consuming unusually large amounts of food that another person would not eat in the same period and setting. Emotional eating involves the consumption of food in response to a series of negative emotions. Associated with both are emotional regulation difficulties. People can also be susceptible to overeating because of the hedonic nature of certain foods, such as those high in fat and sugar. We aimed to analyze the differences between increasing levels of binging in hedonic and emotional eating, and its relationship with emotional regulation, and body mass index (BMI). Methods 143 adult cis women (between 18 and 59 years old) completed the Binge Eating Scale, the Garaulet Emotional Eating Questionnaire, the Power of Food Scale, and the Emotional Regulation Difficulties Scale. Results Participants with higher levels of binging showed greater emotional dysregulation, levels of both emotional and hedonistic eating, and BMI. However, emotional dysregulation and BMI do not predict differences in the two types of feeding behavior. Conclusions Results are discussed through different perspectives, such as responsiveness to a caloric food environment, an association with a restrictive eating style, an uncontrolled eating pattern associated with impulsivity, or weight bias that generates stress in people with larger body sizes. Interventions based on intuitive or conscious eating are proposed to address some of these problems.