Changes in affect longitudinally mediate associations between emotion regulation strategy use and disordered eating.

Little is known about how daily changes in emotion regulation may impact disordered eating. We found that maladaptive emotion regulation (e.g., rumination) was associated with a higher likelihood of binge eating and purging on the next day because it predicted increased next-day negative affect. In contrast, dieting was more closely tied to fluctuations in positive affect. Targeting daily emotion regulation and affective processes may help disrupt cycles of disordered eating.