Binge eating: The roles of emotion regulation, executive functioning, and mindfulness

Binge eating is characterized by a loss of behavioral and emotional control that results in disinhibited eating. Binge eating is regarded as an attempt to self-regulate, and broadly represents difficulties in emotion regulation. Preliminary research suggests that executive functioning deficits may contribute to problems regulating emotions, impulses, attention, and awareness in general and specifically with regards to eating behavior. However, research is less conclusive as to which executive functions play the greatest role in emotion regulation and binge eating. While research supports the relationship between emotion regulation and binge eating, it is less clear if trait mindfulness and/or executive functioning underpin that relationship. The purpose of this research was to examine if trait mindfulness, working memory, and inhibitory control are correlated and serve as mechanisms of emotion regulation difficulties that lead to binge eating. These relationships were explored given preliminary evidence that mindfulness practice and executive functioning can interdependently improve and rely on one another. This study recruited 58 female participants and used three separate path models to test if working memory, inhibitory control, and trait mindfulness mediated the relationship between emotion regulation difficulties and binge eating. Results indicated that trait mindfulness was a significant mediator. Results implicate that increasing mindfulness may improve emotion regulation and binge eating without the parallel need to improve executive functioning.