Attribution of weight regain to emotional reasons amongst European adults with overweight and obesity who regained weight following a weight loss attempt

Abstract

Purpose Despite the wide availability of effective weight loss programmes, maintenance of weight loss remains challenging. Difficulties in emotion regulation are associated with binge eating and may represent one barrier to long-term intervention effectiveness in obesity. The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between emotion regulation difficulties and the extent of weight regain in a sample of adults who had lost, and then regained, weight, and to examine the characteristics associated with emotional difficulties. Methods 2000 adults from three European countries (UK, Portugal, and Denmark) completed an online survey assessing self-reported weight loss and regain following their most recent weight loss attempt. They also completed a binge eating disorder screening questionnaire and, if they had regained weight, were asked if they attributed it to any emotional factors (a proxy for emotion regulation difficulties). Spearman's correlations and logistic regression were used to assess the associations between emotion regulation, weight regain, and strategy use. Results Emotion regulation difficulties were associated with greater weight regain (N = 1594 who lost and regained weight). Attribution to emotional reasons was associated with younger age, female gender, loss of control and binge eating, lower perceptions of success at maintenance, using more dietary and self-regulatory strategies in weight loss, and fewer dietary strategies in maintenance. Conclusions Weight-related emotion regulation difficulties are common amongst regainers and are associated with regaining more weight. Affected individuals are already making frequent use of behavioural strategies during weight loss, but do not apply these consistently beyond active attempts. Simply encouraging the use of more numerous strategies, without concurrently teaching emotion regulation skills, may not be an effective means to improving weight outcomes in this group. Level of evidence Level V, descriptive (cross-sectional) study.

Features and Trajectories of Eating Behavior in Weight‐Loss Maintenance: Results from the German Weight Control Registry

“…Decreasing dietary restraint combined with increasing disinhibited (emotional and external) eating over time was associated with weight regain. Our findings could be the starting point for intervention studies that examine strategies to improve emotion regulation skills in weight loss and weight‐loss maintenance treatment approaches ().…”

“…Nevertheless, the fact that these behaviors may reinforce each other keeps the individual in a vicious cycle. Regardless of the possible causal relationship, emotional eating and the susceptibility to disinhibition need to be addressed in overweight and obesity treatment in order to enable patients to keep their weight off long term (). We suggest including strategies to improve emotion regulation skills into weight loss and weight‐loss maintenance treatment approaches, in addition to strategies that help people to increase dietary restraint and to self‐regulate successfully ().…”

“…Restraint may be difficult to sustain, and failures in restraint may ultimately contribute to weight regain. Accordingly, previous studies have found that reductions in disinhibition are associated with greater weight loss during weight‐loss treatment and better weight‐loss maintenance after successful weight reduction (). In a large prospective sample of the general population, Keller and Siegrist () found that participants reporting high levels of emotional eating had more extreme weight fluctuations in the consecutive years than participants with low levels of emotional eating.…”

A model of emotional stress‐induced binge eating in female mice with no history of food restriction

“…For the OVX cohort (Figure 4) two-way repeated measures ANOVA showed a main effect of cycle (F (1, 28) = 12.79; P = .0013) and treatment (F (3, 28) = 6.785; P = .0014) and a trend toward an interaction between these two factors (F (3,28) =2.366; P = .0923).…”

Revue de presse

“…Attribution of weight regain to emotional reasons amongst European adults with overweight and obesity who regained weight following a weight loss attempt K Sainsbury, EH Evans, S Pedersen, et al (2017) Eating and Weight disorders [7] Purpose: Despite the wide availability of effective weight loss programmes, maintenance of weight loss remains challenging. Difficulties in emotion regulation are associated with binge eating and may represent one barrier to longterm intervention effectiveness in obesity.…”