Daily Ovarian Hormone Exposure and Loss of Control Eating in Adolescent Girls: A Stage 2 Registered Report

This Stage 2 Registered Report examined (1) the main effects and interaction of within-person daily associations between ovarian hormones (i.e., estrogen, progesterone) and loss of control eating (LOCE), and (2) the within-person mediating roles of food-related reward anticipation and response inhibition.

Adolescent girls (n = 43) with regular menstrual cycles completed a baseline session followed by 35 days of ecological momentary assessment (multiple times per day), go/no-go tasks measuring response inhibition (daily), and saliva samples for hormone analyses (daily).

There was a significant interaction between within-subjects estrogen and progesterone in relation to daily LOCE. Days when estrogen and progesterone were opposing (i.e., high estrogen, low progesterone and low estrogen, high progesterone) were associated with greater LOCE compared to days when both estrogen and progesterone were either high or low. Within-subjects, day-level progesterone level was negatively associated with higher reward anticipation, and greater prompt-level reward anticipation predicted higher subsequent LOCE at the following prompt; the indirect effect was non-significant, however. There were no associations of response inhibition with hormones or LOCE.

Our findings highlight daily associations between ovarian hormones and LOCE among adolescent girls. Opposing levels of estrogen and progesterone heightened risk for LOCE. In addition, lower progesterone may increase food-related reward anticipation and in turn LOCE. Overall, this study advances momentary models of LOCE in adolescent girls by highlighting hormones and reward anticipation as maintenance processes for real-world LOCE.