Insecure attachment and impaired reflective functioning mediate the association between childhood trauma and grazing...

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Psychiatry
• Eating Disorders

Background:

• Grazing, a clinically significant eating behavior, involves repetitive small food intakes, often linked to poor bariatric surgery outcomes.
• While childhood trauma is associated with disordered eating, the psychological mechanisms of grazing remain unclear.
• Developmental theories propose early trauma disrupts attachment and emotional regulation via mentalization deficits, potentially leading to disordered eating.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the mediating roles of attachment insecurity and impaired reflective functioning in the relationship between childhood trauma and grazing behaviors.
• To test a trauma-informed developmental model for understanding grazing.

Main Methods:

• Cross-sectional study with 681 Italian adults.
• Utilized self-report measures.
• Employed structural equation modeling with latent variables and bootstrap resampling (5,000 iterations).

Main Results:

• Childhood trauma correlated with attachment anxiety and avoidance.
• Attachment anxiety significantly mediated the link between childhood trauma and impaired reflective functioning.
• Impaired reflective functioning was the strongest predictor of grazing behaviors, with the full mediation pathway explaining 36.4% of variance.

Conclusions:

• Findings support a trauma-informed developmental model for grazing behaviors.
• Attachment anxiety and impaired reflective functioning are key mediators linking early trauma to problematic eating.
• Mentalization-based interventions targeting attachment insecurity may benefit individuals with trauma histories and grazing behaviors.