Sequential Mediation of the Relation of Increased Physical Activity and Weight Loss by Mood and Emotional Eating Changes

Abstract

Psychological/behavioral correlates of weight loss, including emotional eating, require improved understandings. These might be especially useful in the context of community-based interventions. Women with obesity, enrolled in 6-month community-based weight loss treatments emphasizing either self-regulation (n = 54) or typical educational methods (n = 52), were evaluated on changes in physical activity/exercise, mood, emotional eating, and weight. Significant improvements on each measure were found in both groups, with significantly greater advances made in the self-regulation emphasis group. Using a lagged variable analytic framework, change in emotional eating significantly mediated physical activity → weight change (over both 6 and 12 months) relationships. Group membership moderated only the mood → emotional eating change relationship. Paths from changes in physical activity → mood → emotional eating → weight were significant, with no alternate path reaching significance. Group was not a significant moderator. Identified paths from physical activity to weight loss, through sequential changes in mood and then emotional eating, should be leveraged to guide community-based weight management curricular development and application. Through such large-scale possibilities for dissemination, means for the reversal of the obesity epidemic could be made possible.