Diet and Emotions/Emotional Eating (Adult Population)

The CNP Diet and Emotions/Emotional Eating Research Category consolidates research exploring the interdependent relationship between dietary intake, emotions, and emotional eating. While this is its own research category, dietary intake, emotions, and eating behavior often intertwine. For this reason, you may see studies in this research category that could just as easily been placed in the Diet and Behavior research category (and vice versa). To view each original study on the open internet, click “Original.” To view the CNP-written abstract summary, click “CNP Summary.” While only some of the CNP-written abstract summaries are available below for free, all abstract summaries are available to CNP members through the CNP Library Membership.

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FEATURED CNP RESEARCH SUMMARY

Emotion regulation difficulties and impaired working memory interact to predict boredom 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.