2 - (SYM 92) Sleep Quality Is Not Associated with Daily Disordered Eating Behaviors in a Sample of Young Women with Disordered Eating

Although eating disorders and sleep disturbances are known to be related, there has not been adequate research on underlying mechanisms. Previous studies using ecological momentary assessment (EMA) to evaluate associations between sleep quality and disordered eating behaviors (DEBs) have largely not found statistically significant associations. For example, a study (Goldschmidt et al., 2020) found no association between sleep quality and next-day loss-of-control eating (N = 40); whereas another study (Manasse et al., 2022) found that within-person sleep quality only predicted engagement in maladaptive exercise (N = 96). Given the mixed findings, studies with larger samples are warranted.

The present study used EMA to evaluate sleep quality and daily engagement in DEBs. Participants were 171 young women ages 18-25 (M = 20.23, SD = 1.71) with current elevated DEBs (at least one per week over the past three months). Participants completed seven days of EMA, in which they reported the past night’s sleep quality and answered six surveys per day about engagement in DEBs. Complete case analysis was used resulting in 443 data points. Each type of DEB was aggregated at the day level and dichotomized as presence or absence of a DEB. We conducted four multilevel logistic regressions, nesting days within subjects. We predicted loss-of-control eating, purging, restricting, and compulsory exercise using past night’s sleep quality and survey day as fixed effects and random intercepts by subjects.

Sleep quality did not predict engagement in DEBs (all ps > .10). Findings replicated past studies that found no or few prospective associations between sleep quality and engagement in DEBs in young women. Although in this study, self-reported sleep quality was not linked to engagement in DEBs, it is possible that other sleep metrics, such as objectively derived measures of sleep onset latency, duration, or continuity, may predict DEBs. Furthermore, it is also possible that associations may vary by gender (Barragán et al., 2021). Future studies should examine both subjective and objective sleep indices across genders to better understand potential links between sleep and DEBs.