Social movement involvement and healthy diet and activity behaviors among US adults.

Unhealthy lifestyle behaviors, namely poor diet and inadequate physical activity, significantly contribute to poor health and obesity risk, which in turn impact chronic illness outcomes. A possible approach to improving these health behaviors and subsequent outcomes is to capitalize on the theorized link between social movement involvement and overlapping health behaviors. Social movement involvement may be a viable stealth intervention for health, utilizing intrinsic motivators to improve health without an explicit focus on changing health behavior. Thus, the current study explored the links between social movement involvement and diet and physical activity. Two samples from a college population (N = 196) and the general population (N = 195) participated in an online survey, which included measures of social movement involvement, social movement-related health behaviors and dietary intake and physical activity. After controlling for known covariates, social movement-related health behaviors mediated the relationship between level of social movement involvement and fruit and vegetable consumption, whole grain intake and average daily physical activity in both samples. These findings suggest that health behaviors associated with social movement involvement may be an important mechanism in promoting health among social movement members and that the model holds across adult populations. This research adds to existing literature on stealth interventions as a viable means of improving important behavioral health components linked with obesity and chronic disease and supports social movement involvement as a potential form of stealth intervention.

Eating when depressed, anxious, bored, or happy: Are emotional eating types associated with unique psychological and physical health correlates?

The majority of research on emotional eating has examined general emotional eating, to the exclusion of more distinct emotions such as boredom and positive emotions. The current study aimed to examine whether specific types of emotional eating (i.e., eating in response to depression (EE-D), anxiety/anger (EE-A), boredom (EE-B), and positive emotions (EE-P)) were related to a range of psychological (i.e., global psychological well-being, eating disorder symptoms, emotion regulation) and physical health variables. A sample of adults (n = 189) with overweight/obesity were recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk. Participants self-reported height and weight and completed a battery of questionnaires. Correlational analyses showed that more frequent EE-D, EE-A, and EE-B were related to poorer psychological well-being, greater eating disorder symptoms, and more difficulties with emotion regulation. EE-P was not significantly related to outcome variables. In regression analyses, eating in response to depression (EE-D) was the type of emotional eating most closely related to psychological well-being, eating disorder symptoms, and emotion regulation difficulties. Exploratory analyses revealed associations between EE-D, EE-A, and EE-B and facets of emotion regulation and specific disordered eating symptoms. Findings suggest that unique patterns exist between specific types of emotional eating and psychological outcomes.

Structure-based feeding strategies: A key component of child nutrition.

OBJECTIVE: This study examined the relationship between structure, autonomy promotion, and control feeding strategies and parent-reported child diet. PARTICIPANTS: Participants (N = 497) were parents of children ages 2.5 to 7.5 recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk. This sample was a Caucasian (79%), educated sample (61% college graduates) with most reports from mothers (76%). METHODS AND MEASURES: Online survey including measures of parent feeding strategies and child dietary intake. RESULTS: Use of structure-based feeding strategies explained 21% of the variance in child consumption of added sugar, 12% of the variance in child intake of added sugar from sugar-sweetened beverages, and 16% of the variance in child consumption of fruits and vegetables. Higher unhealthy food availability and permissive feeding uniquely predicted higher child added sugar intake and child consumption of added sugar from sugar-sweetened beverages. Greater healthy food availability uniquely predicted higher child fruit and vegetable intake. CONCLUSIONS: and Future Directions: In Caucasian educated families, structure-based feeding strategies appear to be a relatively stronger correlate of parent-reported child intake of added sugar and fruits and vegetables as compared to autonomy promotion and control feeding strategies. Longitudinal research may be needed in order to reveal the relationships between autonomy promotion and control feeding strategies with child diet. If future studies have similar findings to this study's results, researchers may want to focus more heavily on investigating the impact of teaching parents stimulus-control techniques and feeding-related assertiveness skills on child dietary intake.

Emotion regulation mediates relationships between perceived childhood invalidation, emotional reactivity, and emotional eating.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is informed by the biosocial model which suggests that emotional sensitivity and childhood invalidation interact to influence emotion dysregulation, leading to behavioral disorders. Although adapted DBT interventions have resulted in improved emotional eating, little research has been conducted to examine whether key aspects of the biosocial model apply to emotional eating. Adults (N = 258) were enrolled via Amazon's Mechanical Turk. Three separate mediation analyses were performed using Hayes' SPSS macro. Results showed that emotion regulation difficulties mediated the relationships between biosocial variables (i.e. perceived maternal and paternal invalidation and emotional reactivity) and emotional eating.

Consequences of Picky Eating in College Students.

OBJECTIVE: To examine the relation between young adult picky eating (PE) and psychosocial outcomes (eg, social phobia, quality of life) and dietary intake. DESIGN: Cross-sectional study including demographic, quantitative, and qualitative measures. PARTICIPANTS: Midwestern undergraduate convenience sample (n = 488) recruited early 2020. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Picky eating identity and bias internalization, social phobia, quality of life, and dietary intake. ANALYSES: Pearson correlations were conducted among study variables. Independent t tests compared picky eaters and nonpicky eaters on key variables. Qualitative data were coded using content analysis. RESULTS: Picky eaters reported eating less fiber (t[445] = -3.51; P < 0.001; d = 0.34) and vegetables (t[464] = -3.57; P < 0.001; d = 0.33), and reported more social phobia (t[336.84] = 4.04; P < 0.001; d = 0.39) than nonpicky eaters. Picky eating behaviors were positively correlated with PE identity (r[190] = 0.48; P < 0.001; R2 = 0.23) and bias internalization (r[190] = 0.44; P < 0.001; R2 = 0.19). CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: Future research might explore additional factors that theoretically overlap with PE behavior (eg, other eating styles, disordered eating patterns) or play a role in PE (eg, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive difficulties). A greater understanding of these factors may lead to intervention to reduce PE in adults. In addition, validation of the PE identity and PE distress measures is essential for future use and to replicate this study's findings.

Self-reported emotional eating is not related to greater food intake: results from two laboratory studies.

Objective: Despite widespread use of emotional eating self-report measures, the validity of these measures has been questioned. Most of this research has focused on the validity of the Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire (DEBQ) as opposed to the Emotional Eating Scale (EES). The current paper describes two experimental studies that examined associations between self-reported emotional eating and emotional eating measured in the laboratory. To address previous design limitations, the current studies used highly palatable foods, effective mood induction methods, and the EES, in addition to the DEBQ. Design: In two samples of college students, participants were randomised to a neutral or negative mood induction. Main Outcome Measures: The traditional DEBQ and the original and revised versions of the EES were used to measure self-reported emotional eating. Emotional eating was assessed in the laboratory using a bogus taste test. Subjects were asked to taste various foods, and food intake was measured. Results: In both samples, self-reported emotional eating using the DEBQ and EES was unrelated to laboratory measured emotional eating (i.e. food consumed during the bogus taste test). Conclusion: Future research in this area would benefit from using diverse samples and development of novel methods of assessing emotional eating.

Mindful feeding and child dietary health.

OBJECTIVE: This study examined the relationship between mindful feeding as a novel construct and parent-reported child dietary intake. METHODS: Participants (N=497) were parents of children ages 2.9 to 7.5 recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk). Parents were primarily non-Hispanic white (79%) and female (76%). Simple and hierarchical regression analyses were conducted to examine the associations between parental mindful feeding (i.e., parent mental and emotional presence while feeding a child) and their children's dietary intake. RESULTS: Mindful feeding accounted for 5.1% of the unadjusted variance in child fruit and vegetable intake. Mindful feeding accounted for 4.2% of the unadjusted variance in child added sugar consumption after accounting for relevant covariates. Specifically, higher parental mindful feeding predicted higher fruit and vegetable intake and lower sugar intake among children. CONCLUSIONS: Mindful feeding was associated with almost all indicators of healthier child diet, indicating great potential for this approach to improve child health. If incorporated into general or health-focused interventions for parents, mindfulness could significantly improve child health outcomes. Further development and validation of the Mindful Feeding Questionnaire is also recommended, as it could become a useful survey tool to assess for this construct.