Negative affect influences the computations underlying food choice in bulimia nervosa
Individuals often consume tasty, calorically dense foods in response to negative emotions, a phenomenon exemplified by notions of ‘stress eating’ and ‘comfort food’. While this link between food and mood can become pathological in binge eating, the decision-making processes underlying this link are poorly understood. Here, we investigated the impact of acute increases in negative affect on when…
Binge eating in bulimia nervosa is linked to how negative emotions impact the decision-making process when choosing food. Researchers explored how negative affect influences the perceived tastiness and healthiness of foods in individuals with BN and healthy adults. In the study, 25 women with BN and 21 healthy participants took part in two sessions, one with neutral affect induction and another with negative affect induction.
Using a time-varying diffusion decision model, researchers analyzed how negative emotions affect the consideration of taste versus healthiness when choosing high-fat foods. In a neutral affect condition, individuals with BN thought about taste relative to healthiness sooner than healthy controls, but they still stuck to a restrictive food choice policy by reducing the importance of taste.
However, after a negative affect induction, both groups showed a stronger preference for considering taste before healthiness, but this preference was more pronounced in those with BN. This affect-induced bias for high-fat foods was found to be a predictor of more frequent subjective binge episodes over a three-month period. These findings shed light on how negative emotions affect food choices and may explain why binge eating is more likely in individuals with BN during periods of high negative affect, while dietary restriction is more common during low negative affect.
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