Contribution of Emotion Regulation Difficulties to Disordered Eating and Body Dissatisfaction in College Men

Objective: Affect regulation models of disordered eating propose that disordered eating behaviors function as maladaptive efforts to modulate or escape from aversive emotional states. Prior studies have shown both negative affect and emotion regulation factors to be significantly associated with disordered eating and body dissatisfaction in women. The purpose of the current investigation was to evaluate whether emotion regulation difficulties contribute to disordered eating and body dissatisfaction in men.

Method: Two hundred and ninety-six undergraduate men completed a series of questionnaires assessing negative affect, difficulties in emotion regulation, disordered eating, and body dissatisfaction.

Results: A series of hierarchical regression analyses revealed that emotion regulation difficulties accounted for unique variance in both outcome measures after accounting for the variance associated with BMI and negative affect.

Discussion: Results are discussed in terms of the role of emotion regulation difficulties in the etiology and maintenance of body dissatisfaction and disordered eating in men.