Contribution of emotion regulation difficulties to disordered eating and body dissatisfaction in college men.
OBJECTIVE
Affect regulation models of disordered eating propose that disordered eating behaviors function as maladaptive efforts to modulate or escape from aversive emotional states. Prior studies have shown both negative affect and emotion regulation factors to be significantly associated with disordered eating and body dissatisfaction in women. The purpose of the current investigation was to evaluate whether emotion regulation difficulties contribute to disordered eating and body dissatisfaction in men.


METHODS
Two hundred and ninety-six undergraduate men completed a series of questionnaires assessing negative affect, difficulties in emotion regulation, disordered eating, and body dissatisfaction.


RESULTS
A series of hierarchical regression analyses revealed that emotion regulation difficulties accounted for unique variance in both outcome measures after accounting for the variance associated with BMI and negative affect.


CONCLUSIONS
Results are discussed in terms of the role of emotion regulation difficulties in the etiology and maintenance of body dissatisfaction and disordered eating in men.
Lavender
Jason M
JM
Department of Psychology, University at Albany, State University of New York, Albany, New York 12222, USA. jl979833@albany.edu
Anderson
Drew A
DA
D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000273:Adipose Tissue; D000293:Adolescent; D001827:Body Height; D001828:Body Image; D015992:Body Mass Index; D004644:Emotions; D001068:Feeding and Eating Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology*; D005783:Gender Identity; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D053580:Muscle Strength; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012307:Risk Factors; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult