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BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article

Front. Psychol.
Sec. Eating Behavior
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1343048

The Moderating Role of Food Cravings in the Relationship between Weight Suppression and Eating Disorder Psychopathology in College Students

Provisionally accepted
Susana Cruz Garcia Susana Cruz Garcia 1Julia M. Hormes Julia M. Hormes 2*
  • 1 University at Albany, Albany, New York, United States
  • 2 Psychology, University at Albany, Albany, New York, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Weight suppression (WS), the difference between one’s current and highest adult weight, is predictive of eating-related pathology across diagnostic categories and poor eating disorder treatment outcomes, but findings from non-clinical samples have been mixed. Cravings are strong urges for specific foods that are subjectively difficult to resist. Food cravings are now widely conceptualized as cognitive-affective states characterized by intrusive thoughts that are perceived as distressing and can interfere with adaptive functioning. Food cravings are known antecedents of binge eating, but little is known about how they interact with WS. We examined the obsessive-compulsive aspects of food cravings as potential moderators of the association between WS and eating disorder symptoms in general, and binge eating specifically in a cross-sectional study of college students. Participants (n=144, 60.4% female) self-reported their height and current and past highest adult weight and completed the Binge Eating Scale (BES), Eating Disorder Examination-Questionnaire (EDE-Q), and Obsessive Compulsive Eating Scale (OCES). Main and interactive effects of WS and OCES scores on EDE-Q global and BES scores were examined in regression models. There were significant main effects of OCES scores on overall eating disorder symptom severity as well as binge frequency, with those endorsing more craving-related intrusive thoughts and compulsive urges engaging in maladaptive behaviors more frequently. WS alone did not consistently cross-sectionally predict eating disorder psychopathology. Findings suggest that food cravings are significantly associated with disordered eating symptoms and specifically binge eating frequency and should be accounted for in future research on WS in clinical and non-clinical samples.

    Keywords: Food Cravings, Weight suppression, Binge eating, purging, Emerging adults

    Received: 22 Nov 2023; Accepted: 22 Jul 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Cruz Garcia and Hormes. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Julia M. Hormes, Psychology, University at Albany, Albany, 12222, New York, United States

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