Differential caloric intake in overweight females with and without binge eating: Effects of a laboratory-based emotion-regulation training

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Highlights

  • Participants with and without BED were either trained in suppression or reappraisal.

  • They were then instructed to exert the strategy in a mood-inducing experiment.

  • In a subsequent taste-test, caloric intake was higher in the suppression condition.

Abstract

Negative emotions are among the best predictors for the occurrence of binge eating attacks in binge eating disorder (BED). Evidence from self-report and experimental studies suggests that this link may be mediated by deficits in emotion regulation (ER). Therefore, the aim of the present study was to experimentally test the effects of a short laboratory-based ER training on caloric intake in BED. Thirty-nine women with BED and 42 overweight females without BED were randomly assigned to a laboratory-based ER training focusing on either expressive suppression or cognitive reappraisal. They were then given a negative mood induction with the instruction to adopt the learned ER strategy, which was followed by a bogus taste-test. Independent of group membership, caloric intake was significantly higher in the suppression compared to the reappraisal condition. Furthermore, the BED group displayed significantly higher habitual suppression and significantly lower habitual reappraisal scores than the overweight group. The data suggest that therapeutic interventions focusing on the mediation of more adaptive affect-regulation skills may be useful for the reduction of binge eating episodes.

Section snippets

Participants

Participants were recruited by advertisements in local newspapers and via Internet websites. Our clinical group consisted of 39 women meeting DSM-IV-TR criteria (APA, 2000) for BED. Inclusion criteria for the overweight control group (CG; n = 42) were a Body Mass Index (BMI = weight/height2) ≥27. Exclusion criteria were the presence of substance abuse or addiction, bipolar disorder, current or past psychosis, schizophrenia, current suicidal ideation, pregnancy or lactation. Diagnoses for eating

Randomization

Within the groups (BED vs. CG) participants were randomly assigned to either the suppression or the reappraisal condition after the diagnostic session. No other experiments were conducted on the day of the present experiment. The sample consisted of 19 BED participants in the suppression, and 20 BED participants in the reappraisal condition. In the CG, there were 21 participants in each condition.

Training

The training was administered in a standardized manner over the computer. However, to ensure

Sadness induction

Participants watched a 3 min segment of the movie The Champ. This clip was shown to effectively induce sadness in control participants (Rottenberg, Ray, & Gross, 2007) and overweight and obese participants with and without BED (Svaldi et al., 2010). The clip involves the theme of loss of a beloved. It was presented on a 17 inch monitor. Participants had the instruction to adopt the previously trained strategy while watching the film clip. They were informed that the aim of the experiment was to

Procedure

Following the diagnostic session, participants were scheduled for the experimental appointment within one week. All sessions either started at 10am or at 2pm (an equal distribution across group and strategy membership was ensured) and participants were instructed to have a regular meal 2 h prior to testing.1 Both the

Statistics

Manipulation checks and hypotheses were tested by means of univariate and repeated measures analyses of variance (ANOVAs). If assumption of sphericity was not met (Mauchlys Sphericity Test: p < 0.05), degrees of freedom for dependent variables were corrected conservatively by Greenhouse-Geisser. Being exceedingly robust against violation of normality (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2007), ANOVAs were also adopted for variables not normal in distribution. Effect sizes of the group differences and

Sample characteristics depending on strategy

BED participants in the suppression condition did not significantly differ from BED participants in the reappraisal condition with regard to comorbidities, eating pathology, severity of depression, and sociodemographic variables; likewise, scores on these variables were comparable in CG participants in the suppression condition and CG participants in the reappraisal condition (all Fs ≤ 1.748, all ps ≥ 0.194, and all ps > 0.215 for variables assessed by frequencies).

Number of cycles of the laboratory-based ER training

A 2 (Group: BED, CG) × 2

Discussion

The major aim of our study was to test the differential impact of ER strategies on caloric intake in women with BED. For this purpose a group of women with BED and a weight-matched CG were trained in either expressive suppression or cognitive reappraisal by means of a laboratory-based ER training. Subsequently, they received a negative mood induction, which was followed by a bogus taste-test. We hypothesized that in women with BED compared to the CG caloric intake would be significantly greater

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the Ministry of Science and Art of Baden Württemberg and the Research Innovation Fund of the Albert-Ludwigs-University of Freiburg accorded Jennifer Svaldi.

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