Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 7, 2026

Errors as a Means of Reducing Impulsive Food Choice
Published on: June 5, 2016
Effectiveness for interpersonal problem-solving is reduced in women with binge eating disorder
Jennifer Svaldi1, Christina Dorn, Monika Trentowska
1Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, University of Freiburg, Germany. jennifer.svaldi@psychologie.uni-freiburg.de
Objective:
Therapeutic programs for binge eating disorder (BED) often include the mediation of problem-solving skills to deal with the desire to binge. In women with BED, problem-solving abilities have not been studied yet. Knowing that reasons for binge episodes are often linked to interpersonal topics, we expected women with BED to have poorer problem-solving abilities than healthy controls (HC).
Methods:
Twenty-five women with BED and 30 overweight HC were given a shortened version of the Means-Ends Problem-Solving Procedure (MEPS). Dependent variables were the number of relevant means, the effectiveness and the specificity of the generated solution.
Results:
Generated solutions in the group of women with BED were significantly less effective and less specific compared to HC. Moreover, reduced effectiveness of interpersonal problem-solving was related to increased binge frequency.
Conclusions:
The results support the importance of teaching problem-solving ability in individuals with BED to promote behaviour change.
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