The association of alcohol use and positive and negative urgency to same day objective binge eating in emerging adults

IntroductionObjective binge eating and problematic alcohol use often co-occur and are common behaviors in emerging adults. Both behaviors are thought to be driven by affect regulation processes. Objective binge eating often occurs in the context of increasing or acute negative affect, and often occurs in solitude. Alcohol use in emerging adults can also be associated with negative affect regulation. However, in contrast to objective binge eating, a large body of research indicates that there are positively valenced pathways to alcohol use in this age group. Emerging adults often drink socially, to enhance enjoyment, and in the context of positive mood. We propose that one pathway to objective binge eating in this developmental period is through alcohol use itself, such that emerging adults who consume alcohol and who are more likely to act impulsively in the context of positive emotion (i.e., have high levels of positive urgency) may be more likely to binge eat following drinking.MethodsWe collected data using ecological momentary assessment in 106 undergraduates on positive and negative affect, motives for drinking and eating, and alcohol use and objective binge eating, in addition to baseline questionnaires of impulsivity.ResultsThere were no significant changes in affect prior to drinking in this sample. Alcohol use at one time point significantly increased odds of objective binge eating at a later time point in the same day. Individual differences in positive urgency, the tendency to act rashly while experiencing positive affect, were also associated with increased odds of objective binge eating that occurred after alcohol use. Individual differences in negative urgency, the tendency to act rashly after experiencing negative affect, did not have a main effect on objective binge episodes, but did interact with alcohol use to increase the odds of objective binge eating following drinking. The vast majority of drinking episodes prior to objective binge eating were social drinking episodes, and participants most commonly endorsed "to have fun" as a reason for drinking.DiscussionResults suggest that alcohol consumption may increase risk for objective binge eating in emerging adults

Time-Varying Associations Between Hopelessness, Agitation, Shape/Weight Concerns, Interoception, Restricting, and Suicidal Thoughts in a Military Sample

Suicidal ideation (SI) and disordered eating (including caloric restriction, which is commonly encouraged in the military) are prevalent mental health concerns in military samples that also commonly co-occur within people. Most past research on SI and disordered eating has used nomothetic analytic methods. When using these group-level analyses, hopelessness and agitation (i.e., an elevated arousal state) are associated with suicide risk. Interoception (i.e., connection with body and internal sensations) is also a group-level predictor of SI and disordered eating. Additionally, shape/weight concerns are consistently associated with disordered eating behaviors in a variety of samples. Although nomothetic analyses provide valuable information about who might be at risk, there are some considerable drawbacks to these techniques. Idiographic analyses complement these drawbacks by returning the analytic focus to our primary unit of observation – the person. Although there are still a variety of limitations to idiographic methods that are important to acknowledge, technological breakthroughs have furthered the capabilities of idiographic techniques. When using idiographic methods, past research consistently demonstrates that the associations between several symptoms are largely heterogeneous across people. Using time-varying idiographic methods allows us to focus explicitly on what risk factors most strongly predict suicidal thoughts and disordered eating for a specific person. Thus, the current aim of the study is to examine the temporal relationships between hopelessness, agitation, interoception, shape/weight concerns, restricting calories, and suicidal thoughts using time-varying vector autoregressive modeling (TV-VAR). Specifically, we plan to examine the number of times that agitation, interoception, hopelessness, and weight/shape concerns emerge as the most significant edge weight for suicidal ideation and restrictive eating across time for each person

Psychometric Examination of the Social Pain Minimization Scale Amongst Adults with Identities Exposed to Systematic Stigma

We plan to conduct factor analyses and examine the psychometric properties of the Social Pain Minimization Scale across three samples of Black Americans, one sample of Asian Americans, and one sample of adults in larger bodies