Graduate Student Temple University Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
Abstract Text: Conscious food restriction to regulate body shape and weight is regarded as a putative cause of binge eating (BE). However, nascent data suggests that involuntary food deprivation from food insecurity (FI) followed by periods of food access result in patterns of food restriction followed by BE. Therefore, food security, defined of as constant access and availability to food, deserves further exploration as a potential contributor to BE. We conducted a meta-analysis of FI’s association with BE behavior. We searched PsychInfo, PubMed, and Web of Science with key terms (binge eating, food insecurity) for peer-reviewed studies that measured FI and BE using PRISMA guidelines. The studies included in our analysis measured the number of cases of BE for those with and without FI. Our primary outcome was the standard effect size of the odds ratio between FI and BE. We analyzed 15,329 participant’s data from 11 datasets of 28 total studies. Using a random effects model, we found significantly higher odds that those with FI report BE than those who are food secure [OR = 2.02, 95% CI (1.60; 2.56), p < .0001]. Although analysis detected low to moderate heterogeneity, the number of studies with available data was limited [I2 = 0.0%, 95% CI (0%; 74%)]. Our secondary analysis looked at objective BE, which is a symptom for binge eating disorder and bulimia nervosa. We analyzed 10,684 participant’s data from 6 datasets. Again, using a random effects model, we found significantly higher odds that those with FI report objective BE than those who are food secure [OR = 2.18, 95% CI (1.43; 3.32), p < .01]. This meta-analysis documents the association between FI and BE. This result identifies an underexplored etiological pathway to BE and leads us to consider how FI could maintain BE due to the inability to adhere to the treatment guidelines of regular eating.
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