Eating disturbances in women starting university: The contribution of mindfulness and experiential avoidance.

摘要

The main objective of the present research was to extend the emotional regulation model of eating disorders (Overton et al., 2005), specifically by evaluating the significance of avoidance and acceptance of private experiences including emotions. Only a few studies have suggested that experiential avoidance and/or mindfulness are related to disordered eating (Lavender, Jardin & Anderson, 2009), although there is theoretical foundation to support this claim (Hayes et al., 1996). The author investigated the contribution of mindfulness and experiential avoidance as potential correlates of eating disturbances in two groups of women during their first year at university using a mixed-method design. In the first study, 171 female university students responded to a survey assessing their levels of mindfulness, experiential avoidance, transition stress, and their body mass. These variables were used as predictors of eating disturbances as well as global and specific body dissatisfaction. The same constructs were measured in the second study, which included 145 female university students; although different emotional processing variables were added to the second study as predictors, namely negative affect and alexithymia. Results were consistent across both study one and two; hierarchical regressions indicated that experiential avoidance significantly predicted global and specific body dissatisfaction. Low levels of mindfulness predicted greater disturbances in eating patterns. In addition, mindfulness and experiential avoidance explained unique variance above and beyond the contribution of negative affect and alexithymia in the second study. A third study used qualitative methods to assess young women's experience of using food as a means of regulating their emotions. Findings revealed the ubiquity of eating as a means of regulating affect for university females. Whereas transition stress was not a significant predictor of body dissatisfaction and eating disturbances in the quantitative studies, it emerged as a significant contextual factor in the qualitative study. The significance of the results within the framework of the emotional regulation model of eating disorders is discussed, as well as implications for clinical practice.