engleski

Emotion regulation and perfectionism: The mediating role of different eating patterns on eating disorder symptoms

Background: Perfectionism and emotion regulation are significantly associated with eating disorder symptoms in adolescents and are implicated as risk and maintaining factors. In our research we tested the mediating role of cognitive eating patterns in the relationship between emotion regulation, perfectionism and eating disorder symptoms. Methods: A total of 482 adolescents (246 girls and 236 boys ; mean age: 15.00) participated in this study. Participants completed questionnaires assessing difficulties in emotion regulation, perfectionism, cognitive eating patterns, and disordered eating, along with the data about weight, height, and other demographic variables. BMI was calculated and expressed as a percentile (2.8% were underweight, 74% normal weight, 12.9 % overweight and 10.3% obese). Findings: The results indicated that cognitive restraint, emotional and uncontrolled eating mediated the relationship between emotion (dis)regulation and perfectionism with eating disorder symptoms, with cognitive restraint having the strongest path coefficients. Adolescents with emotion regulation difficulties reported more emotional and uncontrolled eating. Furthermore, emotional regulation was also directly related to eating disorder symptoms. On the other hand, perfectionism showed weaker relations with cognitive eating patterns. Discussion: Elevated self-reported perfectionism is frequently found in individuals with eating disorders (Egan et al., 2011) but our results suggest that emotional regulation may be more important in the explanation of eating disorders. When adolescents experience both poor emotion regulation and emotional or uncontrolled eating, risk for experiencing concerns about weight and a range of disordered eating symptoms may be higher. Treatment and preventive interventions in adolescents should focus on emotional regulation. Funding: This research was fully supported by the University of Rijeka project (uniri-drustv-18-63)

perfectionism, emotion regulation, eating disorders symptoms, adolescents

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