Characterizing emotional eating by valence, over-vs under-eating, and contextual factors: A latent profile analysis

Abstract

Few measures of emotional eating (EE) assess nuances within both emotional valence (e.g., positive, negative) and eating behaviors (e.g., undereating, overeating). Additionally, the present study sought to address this gap by using latent profile analyses to better characterize subgroups of positive and negative emotional eaters. An unselected sample of adults (N = 389; M_age = 37.42; SD = 12.84) were recruited online through Prolific Academic. Participants completed self-report measures of emotional eating, distress intolerance, psychological flexibility, disordered eating, loss of control, emotional dysregulation, psychosocial impairment, and emotional eating contextual factors. Latent profile analysis yielded a four-profile solution: 1) Low emotional eating (7 %), Negative overeating and positive undereating (16 %), Negative undereating and positive overeating (41 %), and Moderate emotional eating (36 %). Regression analysis demonstrated that body mass index (BMI) and gender significantly predicted profile membership, while Chi-Square revealed significant differences in levels of disordered eating, psychosocial impairment, and contextual factors (e.g., emotional intensity and physical-environmental cues) across EE profiles. Findings highlight the importance of utilizing emotional eating profiles in eating disorder risk assessment and development of interventions.