Assistant Professor Ohio University Athens, Ohio, United States
Abstract Text: College students in the United States report elevated rates of food insecurity, an experience that is longitudinally associated with binge eating. Intuitive eating is characterized by reliance on one’s internal cues for hunger and fullness, predominantly eating for such physical reasons, and flexibility within eating-related decisions, which may protect against binge eating. Individuals experiencing food insecurity demonstrate less intuitive eating, and it remains unclear whether engagement in intuitive eating could function as a protective factor, weakening the link between food insecurity and binge eating. The current study aimed to replicate previous findings of associations between binge eating and food insecurity and relevant domains of intuitive eating (e.g., reliance on hunger and satiety cues (RHSC) and eating for physical rather than emotional reasons (EPR)) and evaluate whether intuitive eating moderated the association between food insecurity severity and binge eating. Data were collected from 493 college students (M(SD) age = 19.56(1.43) years; 79.5% female; 90.1% white). Bivariate analyses found a significant positive correlation between food insecurity severity and binge eating (rs = .12, p < .01). Intuitive eating scores were significantly negatively associated with binge eating (RHSC: rs = -.36, p < .001; EPR: rs = -.60, p < .001). Contrary to hypotheses, in models containing BMI, gender, food insecurity severity, and intuitive eating subscale scores, with RHSC and EPR scores included in separate models, no significant interactive effect existed between the food insecurity and intuitive eating domains (RHSC: b = -0.23, p = .37; EPR: b = -0.09, p = .69). With the inclusion of intuitive eating domains in the models, food insecurity severity was no longer associated with binge eating (RHSC: b = 0.24, p = .42; EPR: b = 0.45, p = .07). This study is the first to leverage a continuous, severity-based approach to measuring food insecurity and contributes to the growing body of literature examining associations between food insecurity and eating behaviors. The present findings suggest that individuals who report a subjective ability to attend to their body’s signals of hunger and fullness, believe them to be accurate, and use such cues as a primary consideration when making eating-related decisions may be less likely to binge eat even when experiencing food insecurity. Although clinicians may have less ability to lessen clients’ experience of food insecurity severity directly, they may be able to help such clients reduce their binge eating behaviors via interventions that build interoceptive abilities and alternative emotional coping tools beyond eating. Future research is required to examine such relations longitudinally to determine the direction of causality, temporal associations, and possible underlying mechanisms.
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