Difficulties in Emotional Regulation May Mediate the Relationship Between Low Mindfulness and High Emotional Eating in Adolescents with Obesity

Abstract

Background:

Although the effect of mindfulness on emotion regulation is known, the relationship between mindfulness and emotional eating has not been well-studied in adolescents to date. In this study, we investigated whether mindfulness has a direct effect on the level of emotional eating or whether this association is mediated by emotional dysregulation in a sample of adolescents with obesity.

Methods:

Our sample consisted of 80 adolescents with obesity. All participants were administered the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia for School-Age Children—Present and Lifetime Version (K-SADS-PL), the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS), the Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire (DEBQ-EE), and the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS).

Results:

The mean age of the sample was 15.32 ± 1.07, the mean body weight was 93.33 ± 20.84 kg, and the BMI percentile was 98.33 ± 1.65. In total, 22.5% of mothers and 7.5% of fathers were obese. There were significant associations between high emotional eating and emotion dysregulation and low mindfulness. In two mediation models, the indirect effects obtained by using DERS-total and DERS-impulsivity as the mediators were statistically significant on the path between MAAS and DEBQ-emotion [b = −0.148, confidence interval (CI) = −0.318/−0.031; b = −0.114, CI = −0.233/−0.015, respectively], indicating a significant mediating effects of DERS-total and DERS-impulsivity.

Conclusions:

We suggest that emotional eating increases as mindfulness decreases, through emotional dysregulation, particularly difficulty in regulating impulsivity.