Intolerance of uncertainty and impulsivity related to emotional eating

Abstract

Background: Emotional eating is a contributing factor to weight gain which remains a growing problem in our society. In the literature emotional eating is related to negative affect, however, it is unclear which specific personality characteristics influence the occurrence of emotional eating. Both impulsivity and intolerance of uncertainty (IU) are concepts which are separately related to abnormal eating behaviours, however, the interaction of these characteristics in relation to emotional eating behaviours are not yet investigated. Aims: The aim of this thesis is to investigate the influence of the interaction between impulsivity and IU on emotional eating in order to come to a better understanding of which personality characteristics contribute to the occurrence of emotional eating. Methods: Participants in a control and experimental condition undergo respectively a neutral and negative mood manipulation which is followed by a bogus taste perception task to measure amounts of calorie intake. Baseline levels of impulsivity and IU are measured using standardized questionnaires. Results: Contrary to the expectations, participants in both conditions had lower scores of negative mood after the mood manipulation. Pearsons correlations show a significant positive correlations between scores on IU and the amount of cookies consumed among all participants. No other associations were found between impulsivity, IU, and emotional eating. Discussion: A possible explanation for this lack of associations between IU and calorie intake and impulsivity and calorie intake might be that it is difficult to manipulate eating behaviour in a laboratory setting.