Emotional maltreatment and disordered eating in adolescents: Testing the mediating role of emotion regulation

doi:10.1016/j.chiabu.2014.05.011

Child Abuse & Neglect

Volume 39, January 2015, Pages 156-166

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2014.05.011 Get rights and content

Abstract

The present study aimed to determine if emotion regulation mediates the relationship between emotional maltreatment and disordered eating behavior in adolescents. Participants were 222 secondary school pupils (aged 14–18 years) from a state high school in the UK. Standardized questionnaire measures were used to gather self-report data on emotional abuse and emotional neglect, functional and dysfunctional emotion regulation strategies and disordered eating behavior. Results showed that disordered eating was associated with emotional abuse, dysfunctional emotion regulation and being female. Multiple mediation analysis found an indirect relationship between emotional abuse and disordered eating through dysfunctional emotion regulation. Interestingly, emotional neglect predicted lower levels of functional emotion regulation. The findings support previous research showing emotion regulation to mediate the relationship between childhood abuse and disordered eating in adults and a differential effect of abuse and neglect on emotion regulation. Longitudinal studies are required to confirm the direction of relationships; however these data suggest that dysfunctional emotion regulation is a significant variable in the development of disordered eating and may be a useful target for intervention.

Section snippets

Design

This was a cross-sectional survey study of community-based adolescents using standardized questionnaire measures.

Participants

Participants were 226 secondary school pupils in a rural, state high school in the United Kingdom. Initially 268 young people were invited to take part. Of these, 21 opted out through personal choice, 5 opted out through parental choice, 11 were asked not to take part as they were absent on the day of the study briefing and one was asked not to take part as this individual's parents

Prevalence of emotional maltreatment and disordered eating

Table 1 shows the scores on all scales for males, females, and the whole sample. Participants were considered to display a history of emotional maltreatment if they scored within either of the top two categories of the childhood trauma scale subscales (within the moderate-severe or severe-extreme range). Twenty four participants (10.8%) fell within these ranges for emotional abuse, and 45 participants (20.3%) for emotional neglect. These means are very similar to those found in community

Summary of findings

The aim of the present study was to test whether emotion regulation mediated the relationship between emotional maltreatment and disordered eating. Unlike previous research, the present study measured both emotional abuse and neglect, functional and dysfunctional emotion regulation, and tested the relationships in an adolescent sample. Both emotional abuse and neglect were significantly associated with disordered eating in a correlation analysis, but a regression model showed only emotional

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Emotional maltreatment and disordered eating in adolescents: Testing the mediating role of emotion regulation

Abstract

Section snippets

Design

Participants

Prevalence of emotional maltreatment and disordered eating

Summary of findings

Child and Youth Services Review

Children and Youth Services Review

Child Abuse & Neglect

Child Abuse & Neglect

Behavior Therapy

Child Abuse & Neglect

Clinical Psychology Review

Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry

Eating Behaviors

Eating Behaviors

Child Abuse & Neglect

Comprehensive Psychiatry

Personality and Individual Differences

Clinical Psychology Review

Cognitive and Behavioral Practice

Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry

Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry

Child Abuse & Neglect

A systematic review of dialectical behaviour therapy for the treatment of eating disorders

Eating Disorders

Childhood Trauma Questionnaire: A retrospective self-report manual

Guidelines for minimum standards of ethical approval in psychological research

Training in emotion regulation as a treatment for binge eating: A preliminary study

Behaviour Change

Emotion regulation as a scientific construct: Methodological challenges and directions for child development research

Child Development

A cognitive model of bulimia nervosa

British Journal of Clinical Psychology

Cognitive-Emotional-Behavioural Therapy for the eating disorders: Working with beliefs about emotions

European Eating Disorders Review

Emotion regulation and binge eating in children

International Journal of Eating Disorders

Treatment implications of altered affect regulation and information processing following child maltreatment

Psychiatric Annals

Emotion coupling and regulation in anorexia nervosa

Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy

Eating disorders and multilevel models of emotion: An integrated model

Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy

Handling missing data in self-report measures

Research in Nursing and Health

Clinical and neural correlates of alexithymia in posttraumatic stress disorder

Journal of Abnormal Psychology

The Eating Attitudes Test: Psychometric features and clinical correlates

Psychological Medicine