Oakland University, Department of Psychology, Rochester, MI, USA.
Florida State University College of Medicine, Center for Translational Behavioral Science, Tallahassee, FL, USA.
Appetite. 2020 Jul 1;150:104659. doi: 10.1016/j.appet.2020.104659. Epub 2020 Mar 12.
Individuals who struggle with binge eating often report a history of trauma and post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS), but there is still a paucity of studies on the relationship between PTSS (as opposed to trauma exposure) and binge eating specifically. The current study aimed to contribute to a small body of literature surrounding the link between PTSS and binge eating. Binge eating may be a behavioral coping mechanism against negative affect; however, it has been proposed that additional psychological mechanisms (e.g. emotion regulation difficulties and emotional eating) may explain the link between PTSS and binge eating. It was hypothesized that increased PTSS severity would predict greater emotion regulation difficulties, leading to greater emotional eating, and ultimately predict more severe binge eating in a trauma-exposed sample. Cross-sectional data were collected from 360 U.S. based MTurk workers (i.e. convenience sample) who reported trauma-exposure. Demographic and relevant covariates were included in the hypothesized serial mediation model and the results suggest a significant effect of PTSS severity on binge eating problems through emotion regulation difficulties and emotional eating. When both mediators were included in the model, the direct effect of PTSS on binge eating severity was no longer significant; thus, the association between PTSS and binge eating was partly explained by emotion regulation difficulties and emotional eating. This study expands the understanding of the mechanisms underlying PTSS and binge eating and provides support for complementing therapy approaches for PTSS with methods that target emotion regulation and acceptance.
个体在暴食时常常会报告创伤和创伤后应激症状（PTSS）的历史，但关于 PTSS（与创伤暴露相反）与暴食之间的关系的研究仍然很少。本研究旨在为围绕 PTSS 与暴食之间联系的少量文献做出贡献。暴食可能是一种对抗负面情绪的行为应对机制；然而，有人提出，其他心理机制（例如情绪调节困难和情绪化进食）可能解释了 PTSS 与暴食之间的联系。假设 PTSS 严重程度增加将预测更大的情绪调节困难，从而导致更大的情绪化进食，最终在创伤暴露样本中预测更严重的暴食。从美国的 360 名 MTurk 工人（即方便样本）中收集了横断面数据，这些工人报告了创伤暴露。假设的串联中介模型中包含了人口统计学和相关协变量，结果表明，PTSS 严重程度通过情绪调节困难和情绪化进食对暴食问题有显著影响。当模型中包含两个中介变量时，PTSS 对暴食严重程度的直接影响不再显著；因此，PTSS 与暴食之间的关联部分由情绪调节困难和情绪化进食解释。这项研究扩展了对 PTSS 和暴食背后机制的理解，并为用针对情绪调节和接受的方法补充治疗 PTSS 的方法提供了支持。
