Children's weight is a common reason for stigmatization. The aim of this study was to examine the effect of weight stigmatization (WS) during middle childhood on adolescent weight and the role of appetite self-regulation (ASR) as a potential mediator. Across three measurement time points, the study utilized a community sample of N = 1612 participants (51.9% female), aged 7-11 (T1), 9-13 (T2), and 16-21 (T3). WS was assessed via child-reports, different ASR facets (food responsiveness, emotional overeating, satiety responsiveness, external eating) via parent-reports, and height and weight were measured to calculate the standardized body mass index (BMI-SDS). Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the proposed prospective mediation. A total of 11.2% of the children reported WS experiences, with significant differences between the weight groups. ASR fully mediated the prospective association between WS and BMI-SDS. Higher WS predicted higher food responsiveness, higher emotional overeating, and, among older children, lower satiety responsiveness. Additionally, higher food responsiveness predicted higher adolescent BMI-SDS, indicating a specific indirect effect. The total indirect and specific indirect effects for food responsiveness remained significant when controlling for the established influences of parental BMI and body dissatisfaction. Our results highlight a prospective effect of WS on appetite self-regulation and propose ASR as a mediator for the association between WS and weight. WS and ASR might therefore be important factors for the prevention of overweight and obesity in children and adolescents.
The eating behavior of individuals is susceptible to various factors. Emotion is an important factor that influences eating behaviors, especially in women who care about their body weight and dissatisfied with their bodies. This study explored the effect of emotional cues on attentional bias toward food in women with body weight dissatisfaction (BWD). Following the Negative Physical Self Scale-Fatness scores, a total of 60 females were recruited: twenty-nine were assigned to the BWD group, and thirty-one were assigned to the no body weight dissatisfaction (NBWD) group. All participants completed the food dot-probe task after exposure to emotional cues, and their eye-tracking data were recorded. The results showed greater duration bias and first fixation direction bias for high-calorie food in the BWD group than in the NBWD group after exposure to negative emotional cues. After exposure to positive emotional cues, the BWD group showed greater first-fixation duration bias and duration bias for high-calorie food than for low-calorie food. The present study found an effect of emotion on the attention bias toward food in women with BWD, and it provided insight into the psychological mechanism of the relationship between emotion and eating behaviors in women with BWD. Our study suggests that both negative and positive emotional cues may lead women with BWD to focus on high-calorie foods.
Consumers generally underestimate the difference in GHG emissions between animal-based and plant-based items. Existing carbon labels primarily focus on enhancing metric knowledge (i.e., the general GHG emission levels of a food product) yet neglect to improve mapping knowledge (i.e., the relative differences between different food items). This research proposes the "item mapping" carbon labeling strategy, designed to link GHG emissions to food items (i.e., animal- vs. plant-based). Five pre-registered experiments document that the item mapping label (i) reduces the knowledge gap in GHG emissions between animal- versus plant-based food items and (ii) reduces animal-based food choices. The item mapping label is particularly effective at decreasing animal-based food choices for consumers with higher sustainable eating involvement, which is associated with higher knowledge overconfidence (i.e., consumers believe that they know more than they actually do). These findings offer insights into designing carbon labels that facilitate sustainable food choices.
It is well-established that celebrity worship is linked to disordered eating behaviors. However, the relationship between celebrity worship and specific eating disorders (i.e., emotional eating, restrained eating, and uncontrolled eating) as well as the underlying mechanisms remains poorly understood. Based on the tripartite influence model, this study examines the potential mediating roles of upward physical appearance comparison and body dissatisfaction in the association between celebrity worship and disordered eating behaviors. A total of 752 Chinese middle school students (55.2% boys; average age = 13.23 years, SD = 1.01, range: 11-17 years) completed self-report measures assessing celebrity worship, upward physical appearance comparison, body dissatisfaction, and disordered eating behaviors. Path analysis revealed that upward physical appearance comparison mediated the relationship between celebrity worship and uncontrolled eating, but not restrained eating or emotional eating. Additionally, body dissatisfaction was found to significantly mediate the relationship between celebrity worship and all three types of disordered eating behaviors. Moreover, sequential mediation effects were also identified, with upward physical appearance comparison leading to body dissatisfaction, which subsequently influenced disordered eating behaviors. The findings suggest that celebrity worship may indirectly influence on emotional eating, restrained eating, and uncontrolled eating through upward physical appearance comparison and body dissatisfaction among adolescents. These results highlight the importance of addressing the negative influence of celebrity worship by focusing on appearance comparison and body dissatisfaction in efforts to prevent disordered eating behaviors among Chinese adolescents.
The Behavioral Susceptibility Theory posits that food approach/avoidance traits are key genetic contributors to obesity and disordered eating. The genetic tendency to approach/avoid food may manifest with emotional eating (i.e., over or under eating in response to emotional cues). Research indicates that emotional eating (EE) affects long-term success after bariatric surgery, but findings focus mainly on the tendency to overeat in response to negative emotions. The current study examined the role of both emotional over- and under-eating within a pre-bariatric sample, and their association with psychosocial outcomes. Using Latent Class Analysis, responses from 446 participants (74.3% female; 71.5% White, 12.1% African American, 10.3% Hispanic, 4.1% multiracial, 1.1% Other/Unreported; MAge = 42.38, MBMI = 49.15 kg/m2) on the emotional eating subscales of the Adult Eating Behavior Questionnaire were analyzed to identify EE patterns. Participants also responded to measures of emotional distress, quality of life, and disordered eating (e.g., night eating, binge eating, and avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder). A four-class solution emerged: (a) emotional over- and undereating (EOE-EUE; 14.4%), (b) emotional overeating (EOE; 25.3%), (c) emotional undereating (EUE; 26.0%), and (d) non-emotional eating (non-EE; 34.3%). Consistent with previous research, the EOE-EUE class exhibited high levels of psychosocial impairment, and emotional eating classes exhibited higher levels of disordered eating compared to the non-emotional eating class. These findings provide a more nuanced understanding of EE within a pre-bariatric population by identifying patterns of both over- and under-eating within individuals and differentially identifying risk factors associated with such patterns. Limitations include the lack of a non-surgery seeking comparison group, potential for response biases, and the reliance on cross-sectional data.