Eating disorder symptoms and profiles of emotion regulation strategy use

Emotion regulation difficulties are widely thought to be a transdiagnostic risk factor for eating disorders. However, there is limited data on the precise patterns of emotion regulation strategy use that characterize eating-disorder symptoms. Our aim was to comprehensively examine the relationship between emotion-regulation strategy use and eating-disorder symptoms, identifying profiles of strategy use that might characterize these symptoms.

University students and general community members (N = 665, M_age = 23.72, 77.3 % female) completed psychometric measures assessing the use of 12 emotion regulation strategies as well as eating disorder symptoms.

Regression analyses revealed that emotion regulation patterns accounted for a significant 16.2 % of the variance in overall eating disorder symptoms (p < .001). Regarding specific eating disorder facets, emotion regulation accounted for 8.9 % of the variance in eating restraint, 16.8 % in weight concerns, 16.8 % in shape concerns, and 15.2 % in eating concerns. A latent profile analysis extracted eight profiles with different combinations of emotion regulation strategy use and eating disorder symptoms. Profiles associated with elevated eating-disorder symptoms were generally characterized by increased use of maladaptive, and decreased use of adaptive, strategies. Particularly important were patterns of behavioral avoidance and cognitive emotion-heightening.

Our study used cross-sectional data from a single Western country. Future longitudinal work in clinical samples would be beneficial.

Emotion regulation strategy use appears to be an important factor for understanding eating disorder symptoms. Targeting specific patterns of emotion regulation strategy use may be beneficial in the assessment and treatment of eating disorder symptoms.