Intuitive eating mediates the relationship between interoceptive accuracy and eating disorder risk

Research supports an association between altered interoceptive accuracy, or the ability to accurately monitor sensations from the body, and disordered eating. However, the behavioral mechanism through which interoceptive accuracy may influence eating behaviors is unclear. Intuitive eating, the ability to regulate food intake according to visceral cues of hunger and satiety, is positively related to interoceptive accuracy and negatively related to disordered eating. Therefore, we hypothesized that interoceptive accuracy would be negatively associated with intuitive eating which would, in turn, influence eating disorder risk. A mediation analysis was performed to test this hypothesis in a sample of 41 undergraduate women who completed a heartbeat counting task to assess interoceptive accuracy, followed by self-report measures of intuitive eating ability and eating disorder risk. We found that eating for physical rather than emotional reasons and reliance on hunger and satiety cues, two aspects of intuitive eating, mediated the relationship between interoceptive accuracy and eating disorder risk. Although further research is necessary, it is possible that findings regarding the association between interoceptive accuracy and intuitive eating may inform the development of eating disorder prevention efforts.