Date of Award

Summer 8-2023

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Psychology

Program/Concentration

Virginia Consortium Program in Clinical Psychology

Committee Director

Kristin E. Heron

Committee Member

Abby L. Braitman

Committee Member

James M. Henson

Committee Member

Matthew R. Judah

Committee Member

Jennifer Flaherty

Abstract

Objective: The present study examined whether three mind-body factors—emotion dysregulation, interoceptive sensibility, and mindfulness—that are theorized to be implicated in the onset and maintenance of eating disorder (ED) pathology mediated (Aim 1) and moderated (Aim 2) within-person associations between affect and women with elevated ED symptoms’ disordered and intuitive eating behavior use. Method: Participants included 150 young women with elevated ED symptoms who completed a 10-day ecological momentary assessment protocol. To address Aim 1, multilevel structural equation models examined whether the mindbody factors (separately) mediated momentary associations between negative and positive affect, and women’s disordered (dietary restriction, loss of control eating, overeating) and intuitive (eating for physical vs. emotional reasons, unconditional permission to eat, reliance on hunger and satiety cues, body-food choice congruence) eating behavior use. To address Aim 2, moderated polynomial multilevel regressions examined how women’s negative and positive affect levels changed in the hours prior to and following disordered and intuitive eating behavior use (1) on days when they did vs. did not use these behaviors and (2) based on their mind-body factor levels on a given day. Results: Addressing Aim 1, the modulate emotion dysregulation dimension mediated momentary associations between negative (but not positive) affect and women’s loss of control eating and overeating, but these findings did not extend to the other mind-body factors or dietary restriction. Further, all mind-body factors mediated momentary associations between negative and positive affect, and intuitive eating behavior use. Addressing Aim 2, negative affect generally increased in the hours prior to and decreased following women’s disordered eating behavior use, whereas positive affect was generally stable prior to and following disordered eating. Further, with exceptions, negative and positive affect were generally stable prior to and following intuitive eating. These affective trajectories exhibited variations based on day-levels of the mind-body factors, particularly non-acceptance, modulate, and lack of awareness emotion dysregulation, not distracting interoceptive sensibility, and present-centered mindfulness. Conclusions: These findings suggest that the mind-body factors are important intermediary factors in momentary associations between affect and disordered and intuitive eating behavior use, and provide insight that can enhance EDs research, theory building, and interventions.

Comments

The VIRGINIA CONSORTIUM PROGRAM IN CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY is a joint program of Eastern Virginia Medical School, Norfolk State University, and Old Dominion University.

Rights

In Copyright. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).

DOI

10.25777/09r3-zw14

ISBN

9798380392907

ORCID

0000-0003-1803-0163

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