Do eating behaviours (restraint, uncontrolled and emotional eating) and the general use of emotion regulation strategies (cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression) predict state body dissatisfaction?

Abstract

Young girls comparing themselves with thinner women (upward comparison) in social media experience Body Dissatisfaction (BD), which is associated with Disordered Eating Behaviours (DEBs), like Restraint Eating (RE), in an effort to fulfil the thin beauty standards. Recent studies suggest that maladaptive Emotion Regulation Strategies (ERSs) increase BD and DEBS in contrast to the adaptive ones, which can effectively reduce them. However, the researchers in most of these studies instruct ERSs and more recently, researchers who utilised self-report measures have demonstrated controversial results in both studies. Thus, this study adopting a social comparison paradigm, will explore whether the general use of the adaptive Cognitive Reappraisal (CR) and the maladaptive Expressive Suppression and the DEBs of Restraint, Uncontrolled (UE) and Emotional Eating would predict state BD. In addition, the relationships between the predictors will be also explored.