Harriëtte M. Snoek

The Stice model of overeating: Tests in clinical and non-clinical samples

The present study tested the dual pathway model of Stice [. A review of the evidence for a sociocultural model of bulimia nervosa and an exploration of the mechanisms of action. Clinical Psychology Review, 14, 633-661 and . A prospective test of the dual-pathway model of bulimic pathology: mediating effects of dieting and negative affect. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 110, 124-135.] in a non-clinical sample of female adolescents and a clinical sample of female eating disorder patients. The model assumes that negative affect and restrained eating mediates the link between body dissatisfaction and overeating. We also tested an extended version of the model postulating that negative affect and overeating are not directly related, but indirectly through lack of interoceptive awareness and emotional eating. Structural equation modelling was used to test our models. First, in the two samples, body dissatisfaction and drive for thinness were associated with overeating/binge eating. In both clinical and adolescent sample, we found support for the negative affect pathway and not for the restraint pathway. Lack of interoceptive awareness and emotional eating appear to (partly) explain the association between negative affect and overeating. Emotional eating was much more strongly associated with overeating in the clinical than in the adolescent sample. In sum, we found substantial evidence for the negative affect pathway in the dual pathway model. The link between body dissatisfaction and overeating in this respect might be explained by the fact that negative affect, due to body dissatisfaction, is related to a lack of awareness of personal feelings and to eating when dealing with negative emotions, which on its turn is associated with overeating.

Restrained Eating and BMI: A Longitudinal Study Among Adolescents

OBJECTIVE Although restrained eating is believed to increase overeating and weight in the long term, the opposite has also been found: Heavy individuals are more likely to diet. The objective of the current study was to test both pathways for adolescents. DESIGN A longitudinal model was used to explore the bidirectional associations between restrained eating and body mass index (BMI). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES At 3 annual waves, restrained eating and BMI were obtained from both older (M age 15.2 years old) and younger (M age 13.4 years old) adolescent boys and girls who were sibling pairs in 404 Dutch families. RESULTS Structural equation modeling showed that BMI predicted restrained eating more consistently than the other way round. The results remained the same when analyzed by sex, age, socioeconomic status, and overeating tendency. Thus, in our general survey of adolescents restrained eating did not seem to be a successful weight loss strategy, nor did it consistently predict weight increase. CONCLUSION Positive associations between restrained eating and BMI should mainly be interpreted in the sense that higher BMI predicted more restrained eating.

Parental control and the dopamine D2 receptor gene (DRD2) interaction on emotional eating in adolescence

The present study addresses the emergence of emotional eating in adolescence in relation to maternal or paternal psychological control. A reduction of food intake is considered the biological natural response to distress, therefore we tested whether the a-typical stress response of emotional eating develops in interaction with genetic vulnerability. Carrying the A1 allele of the dopamine D2 receptor (DRD2) gene Taq1A polymorphism (rs1800497) is associated with reduced dopamine D2 receptor availability in the brain. We hypothesized that carrying this allele would confer risk for the development of emotional eating, particularly so in adolescents with adverse rearing experiences. Participants were 279 Dutch adolescents (average age of 13.4) that participated in a prospective study with a four-year follow-up. We found a moderator effect of DRD2 genotype on the relation between both maternal and paternal psychological control and increases in emotional eating in both sexes. Adolescents showed only an increase in emotional eating in relation to high psychological control if they carried at least one DRD2 A1 allele. This study is the first to show that the relationship between adverse rearing experiences and emotional eating might be dependent on genetic make-up.

Emotional, external and restrained eating behaviour and BMI trajectories in adolescence.

Individual differences in eating behaviours might partly explain the variations in development of weight gain and subsequent overweight and obesity. In the current study, identified trajectories of BMI in adolescence and their associations with restrained, emotional and external eating were tested. For the assessment of BMI trajectories growth mixture modelling was used; a method used to identify clusters of individuals within a population that follow distinct developmental trajectories. In total 328 Dutch adolescents (13-15years old at baseline) self-reported their height and weight at five annual waves and their eating behaviour at baseline. Development of BMI was best fitted in five distinct trajectories that showed similar moderate increase of BMI over time; parallel but at a different level. High restrained eaters had a higher chance of being in the higher BMI trajectories. Emotional and external eating were unrelated to the BMI trajectories. In conclusion, adolescents in this study followed very parallel patterns of moderate increases in BMI which suggests that factors acting on individual differences in weight status have had their influence mostly at a - perhaps much - younger age. Restraint eating was related to BMI in early adolescence, but not to an increases or decreases in BMI over the course of adolescence.

Parental Restriction and Their Children’s Food Choices and Intake

Parents use a range of food-related parenting behaviors. These occur within the context of their general parenting styles. The focus of this chapter is on general and food-related parenting behaviors and their relations to children and adolescents’ food intake. Specific attention is paid to parental control and restriction. Studies on the association between general parenting style (control and support) and food intake show inconclusive results. Parental support and an authoritative parenting style (high support combined with high control) were related to healthier eating patterns in some but not all studies. Evidence on whether general parental control is beneficial for food intake is also inconclusive. The interpretation of results is further complicated as a number of studies addressed parenting styles that combine both parental control and support. There is some evidence for unintended negative effects of firm parental restriction on the intake of (specific) foods. Also, there is some evidence for the benefits of an authoritative feeding style in which parents set rules and are not permissive but also respect children’s choices and preferences. Restriction has been related to higher intake of unhealthy foods (forbidden fruit effect), to healthier eating patterns, and also null effects have been found. Overall more research is needed in order to be able to give well-founded advice to parents, and future studies should make clear distinctions between types of control used. Research on food-related parenting practices is complicated by the fact that different questionnaires probably measure different types of control. In addition, commonly used questionnaires have not been validated for actual behavior. Observational studies therefore provide alternative research methods. These studies provide tentative proof that some degree of parental control and involvement is obligatory in order for children to make healthy food choices.