Influence Of Childhood Psychological Abuse On Mindful Eating: Moderated Mediation Analysis

Food is an important resource for human survival and development.However,with the improvement of material living standards,the types of edible foods and taste stimulation are increasingly abundant.Abnormal eating behaviors(such as eating disorders)have become an important risk factor for human physical and mental health,and have led to worldwide epidemics such as obesity and eating disorders.Therefore,the researchers have deeply discussed the causes of obesity or eating disorders,and based on this,they have conducted a series of studies on improving or treating abnormal eating behaviors to reduce the incidence of overweight or eating disorders.It shows that cognitive behavioral therapy,dietary behavioral intervention and dance exercise therapy are all helpful to alleviate the overweight or obesity of individuals,but unfortunately,these methods are difficult to maintain long-term effects.In recent years,mindful eating has been regarded by more and more researchers as a potential way to improve weight.Therefore,exploring the formation and development mechanism of mindful eating can provide useful suggestions for guiding individuals to avoid abnormal eating behaviors and develop good eating habits of mindful eating.How to form mindful eating from the perspective of childhood maladjustment is the focus of foreign researchers.At the same time,some studies have found that individuals who experienced psychological abuse in childhood experience more insecurity in their attachment relationships.They may use eating as a way of release to cover up feelings such as loneliness and depression,which leads to an increase in abnormal eating behaviors such as impulsive eating and a decrease in mindful eating behaviors.Moreover,for individuals who experience psychological abuse,the lack of emotional needs will induce more negative emotions,which may affect the flexibility of emotional adjustment.When individuals can’t cope with these emotions flexibly,it is easier to eat emotionally and more difficult to maintain mindfulness.Therefore,the flexibility of emotional regulation may be the mediating factor that childhood psychological abuse affects mindful eating.In addition,with the increase of age,the influence of family on individuals may gradually be replaced by their peers.In the absence of emotional support from parents,peers may make them gain a sense of support and belonging,buffer the maladjustment caused by parents’ psychological abuse,and become a protective factor for their physical and mental development.On the other hand,the theory of natural stress reduction holds that the natural environment can stimulate positive emotional reactions of human beings,thus playing an important role in alleviating physiological and psychological stress,and possibly alleviating negative factors’ adaptation to individual psychological behavior.Therefore,peer attachment and connectedness to nature can play a moderating role in the influence of childhood psychological abuse on mindful eating and emotional regulation flexibility.Based on the existing literature and related theories,this study takes non-clinical sample college students as the research object,and combines the local culture to investigate the mediating role of emotional regulation flexibility in the relationship between childhood psychological abuse and mindful eating,and the moderating role of peer attachment and connectedness to nature in the influence of childhood psychological abuse on mindful eating and emotional regulation flexibility.This study is divided into two parts: study 1 revised Chinese version of the mindful eating questionnaire for college students,first of all,translate and return the questionnaire.Secondly,554 subjects were selected to predict the prediction questionnaire.Exploratory factor analysis,confirmatory factor analysis and reliability and validity test were carried out on the questionnaire.The results showed that mindfulness eating questionnaire included 14 items and 2 factors,the first factor included 6 items and the second factor included 8 items,and the cumulative explanation rate of the two factors was 46.653%.Confirmatory factor analysis showed that the structural validity of the questionnaire was acceptable(χ2/df=4.267,RMSEA=0.058,CFI=0.942,NFI=0.925).Cronbach’sα coefficient of the questionnaire in this study is 0.68.In the study 2,in order to explore the mediating role of emotional regulation flexibility and the moderating role of peer attachment and connectedness to nature,the questionnaire was used to measure the childhood psychological abuse,emotional regulation flexibility,mindful eating,peer attachment and connectedness to nature of college students.The results show that childhood psychological abuse can not only significantly negatively predict mindful eating,but also predict mindful eating behavior through the mediating role of emotional regulation flexibility.Connectedness to nature can play a moderating role in the relationship between childhood psychological abuse and emotional regulation flexibility,and peer attachment can play a moderating role between emotional regulation flexibility and mindful eating.Eating habits are not only the key factor for individuals to maintain their health,but also have an important impact on their psychological and behavioral adaptation.However,the research on dietary behavior in China mostly focuses on eating disorder and emotional eating,and the research on mindful eating and its influencing mechanism is very limited.Therefore,this study,based on the early childhood environment,combined with attachment theory,emotional regulation model and natural decompression theory,explored the influence of psychological abuse in childhood on mindful eating behavior,and investigated the mechanism of emotional regulation flexibility in the relationship between them.The results show that negative experiences in childhood can lead to emotional maladjustment of individuals and thus hinder the development of mindful eating behavior.The emotional connection with nature and good peer attachment can cushion the emotional and dietary maladjustment caused by early traumatic experience.This is of guiding significance for shaping parents’ reasonable parenting style and then cultivating individuals’ good emotional regulation ability and developing healthy eating habits.