Emotion Regulation and Disordered Eating in Youths: Two Daily-Diary Studies

Disordered eating cognitions and behaviors in childhood and adolescence have been identified as precursors for the development of eating disorders. Another important contributor to eating disorder risk is maladaptive emotion regulation. However, while the regulation of negative affect has been the focus of much research, the literature on the role of positive emotion regulation in eating pathology is extremely limited. The present study extends previous research by examining the regulation of both positive and negative affect in disordered eating using two waves of a daily diary design. Every evening for 21 days, 139 youths (8-15 years) reported their use of rumination, dampening, and disordered eating cognitions and behaviors. One year later, during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, 115 of these youths were followed-up. As predicted, higher levels of rumination and dampening were found to be associated with a higher frequency of weight concerns and restrictive eating behaviors on person-level (both Waves) and day-level (Wave 2). Further, a higher frequency of rumination at Wave 1 predicted increases in the frequency of restrictive eating behaviors one year later. Our findings underline the importance of examining regulation of both positive and negative emotion in order to understand eating disorder risk.