Diet and Emotions/Emotional Eating

In this study, Ferrell et al. (2020) examined whether working memory moderates the relationship between emotion regulation and emotional eating. The theory is that working memory plays a role in emotional control which, if deficient, becomes a risk factor for emotional eating. A group of college students was asked to perform a working memory task and was also questioned on emotional eating measures. These included depression, boredom, anxiety/anger (Emotional Eating Scale), and emotion regulation (Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale). Increased emotion regulation problems were related to emotional eating out of boredom only when working memory was slightly below average. However, associations between working memory, emotion regulation difficulties, depression, and anxiety-driven emotional eating were not found to be significant. These results may indicate that individuals with poorer working memory and greater difficulty controlling emotions, especially in tandem, may be more likely to eat emotionally due to boredom.