(PS8-B40) Coping with an Emotional Rollercoaster: The Role of Affect Lability on the Presence of Binge Eating Among Sexual and Gender Minority Adults

Sexual and gender minority (SGM) individuals are at an increased risk for binge eating (i.e., characterized by a sense of loss of control while consuming a large amount of food). However, very little is known about the specific risk factors that predict increased binge eating within SGM individuals. For example, SGM individuals may experience emotional distress when faced with minority stressors like victimization and discrimination. As a result, SGM individuals may be especially prone to engage in binge eating as a maladaptive coping response to the emotional distress they experience. An understudied factor that may place SGM individuals at increased risk for binge eating is the presence of high affect lability, or large fluctuations in mood. Prior work has identified elevated affect lability within SGM individuals and its role in maintaining suicidal ideation, another maladaptive coping behavior, yet no studies have examined whether affect lability maintains binge eating among SGM individuals. The present study examined 1) whether affect lability was elevated within a sample of SGM individuals compared to cisgender heterosexual peers and 2) whether affect lability mediated the relationship between SGM status and binge eating.

The current study included 128 treatment-seeking adults (26 SGM; 102 non-SGM) who endorsed clinically significant binge eating (i.e., 12 or more loss of control episodes in the past 3 months). Participants completed self-report measures of demographics and affect lability (i.e., Affect Lability Scale) and a clinical interview (i.e., Eating Disorder Examination) to assess binge eating frequency. One-way ANCOVA analyses were conducted to examine differences between groups and Hayes’ PROCESS Macro was used to examine the mediation model. Given differences between groups, age, race, and ethnicity were controlled for in all analyses.

SGM individuals exhibited more frequent binge eating over the previous 3 months (F=1.69, p=.2, M = 89.59, SE = 11.66) compared to non-SGM individuals (M = 72.27, SE = 5.54). SGM individuals also exhibited higher affect lability (F=2.85, p=.09, M = 9.39, SE = .61) compared to non-SGM individuals (M = 8.22, SE = .29). When examining whether affect lability mediated the relationship between SGM status and binge eating frequency, results were in the expected direction, but were not statistically significant.

These findings provided evidence for the presence of increased affect lability among SGM individuals with binge eating. While the mediation results warrant extension in larger samples, the current study provided evidence for affect lability as a potential maintenance factor of binge eating among SGM individuals. Future research should use experimental and ecologically valid methods (e.g., EMA) to better understand the temporal relationships between affect lability and binge eating among SGM individuals. Future work should continue to document the unique risk factors within SGM individuals to help alleviate the increased mental health burden within this population.