UCL Discovery
UCL home » Library Services » Electronic resources » UCL Discovery

Anxiety, stress, and binge eating tendencies in adolescence: a prospective approach

Lim, Michele C; Parsons, Sam; Goglio, Alessia; Fox, Elaine; (2021) Anxiety, stress, and binge eating tendencies in adolescence: a prospective approach. Journal of Eating Disorders , 9 , Article 94. 10.1186/s40337-021-00444-2. Green open access

[thumbnail of Anxiety, stress, and binge eating tendencies in adolescence a prospective approach.pdf]
Preview
Text
Anxiety, stress, and binge eating tendencies in adolescence a prospective approach.pdf - Other

Download (1MB) | Preview

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Recent years have witnessed an increasing prevalence of binge eating tendencies in adolescence-warranting a clearer understanding of their underlying predisposing and precipitating factors. The current study investigated whether the interaction between high levels of anxiety and stress predicted increased levels of binge eating tendencies in a prospective cohort of adolescents (N = 324). METHODS: Measurements were taken over three waves (M ages: 13.33, 14.48, 15.65) as part of the CogBIAS Longitudinal Study. Longitudinal associations between levels of anxiety and stress with binge eating tendencies were estimated using a random intercept cross-lagged panel model (RI-CLPM), which calculates within-person fluctuations over time while accounting for individual trait-like stability and between-person variations. Binge eating tendencies were measured by the Cognitive Restraint, Uncontrolled Eating, and Emotional Eating styles from the Three-Factor Eating Questionnaire-R18. Two models were created for each binge eating tendencies variable: (1) a basic model with anxiety and stress as independent variables; (2) an interaction model with an additional anxiety*stress interaction term. Model fit was assessed by SEM fit indices: X2, CFI, NFI, TLI, RMSEA, SRMR. Superior model fit was ascertained by a chi-square difference test (p < .05). RESULTS: For Cognitive Restraint, the interaction model demonstrated superior fit to the data (p < .05). The anxiety*stress interaction at Waves 1 and 2 was significantly negatively associated with Cognitive Restraint at Waves 2 (β = -0.18, p = .002) and 3 (β = -0.14, p = .002)-suggesting that anxiety and stress interacted to predict increased binge eating tendencies linked with cognitive restraint over and above their independent effects. In contrast, the interaction term between anxiety*stress did not predict levels of Uncontrolled Eating or Emotional Eating over time. CONCLUSIONS: The results highlight the importance of increasing awareness of the interaction between concurrently high anxiety and stress as a potential risk factor for binge eating tendencies in young people. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Not applicable.

Type: Article
Title: Anxiety, stress, and binge eating tendencies in adolescence: a prospective approach
Location: England
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1186/s40337-021-00444-2
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1186/s40337-021-00444-2
Language: English
Additional information: 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 Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
Keywords: Eating disorder, Binge eating, Eating behaviour, Anxiety, Stress, Adolescence, Risk factor, Longitudinal, Structural equation modeling, RI-CLPM
UCL classification: UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10157423
Downloads since deposit
15Downloads
Download activity - last month
Download activity - last 12 months
Downloads by country - last 12 months

Archive Staff Only

View Item View Item