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The association between alexithymia and eating behavior in children and adolescents

Alexithymia, or the difficulty identifying or describing one's own emotions, may be a risk factor for dysregulated eating and excess weight gain. However, the relationships between alexithymia and eating behaviors in community samples of non-clinical youth have not been well-characterized. We h...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Appetite 2019-11, Vol.142, p.104381-104381, Article 104381
Main Authors: Shank, Lisa M., Tanofsky-Kraff, Marian, Kelly, Nichole R., Jaramillo, Manuela, Rubin, Sarah G., Altman, Deborah R., Byrne, Meghan E., LeMay-Russell, Sarah, Schvey, Natasha A., Broadney, Miranda M., Brady, Sheila M., Yang, Shanna B., Courville, Amber B., Ramirez, Sophie, Crist, Alexa C., Yanovski, Susan Z., Yanovski, Jack A.
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Language:English
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Summary:Alexithymia, or the difficulty identifying or describing one's own emotions, may be a risk factor for dysregulated eating and excess weight gain. However, the relationships between alexithymia and eating behaviors in community samples of non-clinical youth have not been well-characterized. We hypothesized that alexithymia would be positively associated with disordered and disinhibited eating in a community-based sample of boys and girls without an eating disorder. Two hundred children (8–17 years old) across the weight spectrum completed an interview to assess loss of control (LOC) eating and eating-related psychopathology, a laboratory test meal designed to induce disinhibited eating, and questionnaires to assess alexithymia, eating in the absence of hunger, and emotional eating. Linear and logistic regressions were conducted to examine the relationship between alexithymia and eating variables, with age, sex, race, and fat mass as covariates. Test meal analyses also adjusted for lean mass. Given the overlap between alexithymia and depression, all models were repeated with depressive symptoms as an additional covariate. Alexithymia was associated with an increased likelihood of reporting LOC eating (p 
ISSN:0195-6663
1095-8304
DOI:10.1016/j.appet.2019.104381