Temporal associations between experiential avoidance and disordered eating behaviors in adolescents and young adults: findings from an epidemiological cohort study with ecological momentary assessment.

Content Provider	Europe PMC
Author	Peschel, Stephanie K. V. Fürtjes, Sophia Voss, Catharina Sigrist, Christine Berwanger, Johanna Ollmann, Theresa M. Kische, Hanna Rückert, Frank Koenig, Julian Beesdo-Baum, Katja
Abstract	PurposePrevious studies linking experiential avoidance (EA) and eating pathology have largely relied on single measurements based on traditional retrospective questionnaires. Taking advantage of available repeated assessments of EA and disordered eating behaviors (DEBs) in the everyday lives of young people from an epidemiological cohort, we aimed to investigate ecologically valid temporal associations between these constructs.MethodsA random population sample of N = 1180 14–21-year-olds from Dresden, Germany, participated at baseline (2015/2016). As part of smartphone-based ecological momentary assessment (EMA), participants reported on engagement in EA and four DEBs (skipping eating, eating large amounts of food, loss-of-control eating, and restrained eating) up to eight times per day for four days. Multilevel modeling of concurrent and time-lagged associations between EA and DEBs, was conducted among those with at least 50% EMA-compliance (n = 1069).ResultsEA was associated with higher concurrent levels of all four types of concurrent DEBs. In addition, EA significantly predicted subsequent levels of restrained eating. Only loss-of-control eating significantly predicted subsequent EA, and this effect depended on the timespan between consecutive assessments. When this timespan was short, higher Loss-of-control eating predicted lower subsequent EA, while it predicted higher subsequent EA when the timespan was longer.ConclusionThe present findings suggest that EA is temporally closely linked to greater engagement in DEBs, supporting theoretical assumptions that DEBs may serve an attempted avoidance function in the context of unpleasant inner experiences. Future studies may benefit from examining samples with more pronounced eating pathology.Level of evidenceLevel IV: Evidence obtained from multiple time series with or without the intervention, such as case studies.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40519-023-01584-x.
Related Links	https://europepmc.org/backend/ptpmcrender.fcgi?accid=PMC10322765&blobtype=pdf
ISSN	11244909
Journal	Eating and Weight Disorders [Eat Weight Disord]
Volume Number	28
DOI	10.1007/s40519-023-01584-x
PubMed Central reference number	PMC10322765
Issue Number	1
PubMed reference number	37405497
e-ISSN	15901262
Language	English
Publisher	Springer International Publishing
Publisher Date	2023-07-05
Publisher Place	Gewerbestrasse 11, Cham, Ch 6330, Switzerland
Access Restriction	Open
Rights License	Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. © The Author(s) 2023
Subject Keyword	Experiential avoidance Disordered eating behaviors Adolescents Young adults Ecological momentary assessment Epidemiology
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Clinical Psychology Psychiatry and Mental Health