(PS8-A25) Is Experiential Avoidance an Important Moderator of the Dual Pathway Model of Disordered Eating in a Diverse Sample of Undergraduate Men and Women?

Saturday, November 19, 2022

12:00 PM – 1:00 PM EST

Location: Westside Ballroom, 5th Floor

Author(s)

CP

Catalina R. Pacheco, M.S.

Graduate Student
University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, New Mexico

Co-Author(s)

Kelsey N. Serier, Ph.D.

Postdoctoral Fellow
Women’s Health Sciences Division, National Center for PTSD, VA Boston Healthcare System
Quincy, Massachusetts
JL

Jamie Loor, Ph.D.

Postdoctoral Research Fellow
University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center
Macon, Georgia
MM

Mindy L. McEntee, Ph.D.

Postdoctoral Scholar
Arizona State University
Phoenix, Arizona
JS

JANE ELLEN E. SMITH, Ph.D.

Professor
University of New Mexico
ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico

Recent national attention on the harmful effect of social media on body image has highlighted the pervasiveness of body dissatisfaction, a risk factor for disordered eating and depression. Rates of body dissatisfaction and disordered eating have also increased in the context of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. There is a strong need to clarify our understanding of factors associated with the development of body dissatisfaction and disordered eating. The Dual Pathway Model (DPM) of disordered eating posits that body dissatisfaction leads to disordered eating through two pathways: dietary restraint and negative affect. This model has been consistently replicated, yet a prospective, longitudinal study found it accounted for only 23% of the variance in disordered eating outcomes, suggesting missing constructs in our conceptualization of disordered eating. Recent research has highlighted the contribution of experiential avoidance (EA), or the tendency to avoid negative emotions, to body image disturbances and disordered eating. EA is addressed in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy which suggests that unhealthy behaviors may function as a way to avoid negative emotions. Thus, EA may contribute to the association between negative affect and disordered eating. No previous studies have examined the relative contribution of EA on disordered eating when considering the other well-established risk factors included in the DPM, nor examined how EA might moderate the negative affect pathway of the DPM. In the current study, a diverse sample (52% Latinx) of undergraduate men (n = 425) and women (n = 1069) completed measures of body dissatisfaction, dietary restraint, negative affect, and EA. Item parcels from these measures were used as indicators of latent variables and the outcome variable was experience of a self-reported objective binge eating episode over the past 3 months. The DPM was tested using structural equation modeling with maximum likelihood estimation. For women, the DPM was replicated. Body dissatisfaction was associated with dietary restraint (β = .87) and negative affect (β = .43), and each independently predicted objective binge eating (dietary restraint: β = .11; negative affect β = .17). EA moderated the relationship between negative affect and binge eating (β = -.06, p = .036), such that for those with low negative affect, EA was more strongly associated with past 3-month objective binge eating. For men, body dissatisfaction was associated with dietary restraint (β = .78) and negative affect (β = .39); however, only EA, and not negative affect nor dietary restraint, was associated with objective binge eating (β = .17, p = .042) with no evidence of moderation. Our findings indicate that EA has differential relationships to disordered eating depending on a woman’s level of negative affect. More research is needed to better understand and predict disordered eating behaviors in men. These results lend partial support to the DPM, expand the model to include the role of EA, reveal potential differences in men and women, and provide information that may be beneficial in addressing increased body dissatisfaction and its sequelae, an obvious need in the age of social media and the COVID-19 pandemic.