The relationship between childhood emotional neglect and emotional eating: the chain mediating role of alexithymia and difficulties in emotion regulation

Abstract

Background Emotional eating is prevalent across various weight groups and has a significant impact on individuals’ emotion regulation and healthy eating behaviors. As an early adverse experience, childhood emotional neglect may be associated with greater emotional eating tendencies, potentially through poorer emotion recognition and emotion regulation; however, the underlying pathways remain unclear. Objective To examine the relationship between childhood emotional neglect and emotional eating among college students, and to test the independent and chain mediating effects of alexithymia and difficulties in emotion regulation. Methods A cross-sectional survey was conducted with 861 college students. Participants completed the Emotional Neglect subscale of the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ), the Emotional Eating Scale (EES), the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS), and the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS). Correlation analysis, regression analysis, and the Bootstrap method were used to examine mediating effects. Results Childhood emotional neglect was significantly positively correlated with alexithymia (r = 0.242, P < 0.01) and difficulties in emotion regulation (r = 0.233, P < 0.01), but not with emotional eating (r = 0.011, P > 0.05). Emotional eating was significantly positively correlated with alexithymia (r = 0.160, P < 0.01) and difficulties in emotion regulation (r = 0.169, P < 0.01). Alexithymia was significantly positively correlated with difficulties in emotion regulation (r = 0.609, P < 0.01). Mediation analysis revealed a significant total indirect effect (effect = 0.1994, 95% CI [0.1118, 0.2985]). The independent mediating effect of alexithymia (0.0906, 95% CI [0.0034, 0.1832]), the independent mediating effect of difficulties in emotion regulation (0.0419, 95% CI [0.0060, 0.0895]), and the chain mediating effect of both (0.0668, 95% CI [0.0124, 0.1306]) were all significant. Neither the direct effect nor the total effect was significant. Conclusions Childhood emotional neglect was not directly associated with emotional eating among college students, but was indirectly associated with emotional eating through alexithymia, difficulties in emotion regulation, as well as their sequential indirect pathway.