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The nature of the association between dietary restraint and weight has been examined in adult samples, but much less is known about this relationship among children. The current study examined the transactional associations among restrained eating behavior and weight among boys and girls during middle childhood. Data for this study came from 263 children participating in the Families and Schools for Health Project (FiSH), a longitudinal study of the psychosocial correlates of childhood obesity. Participants were interviewed by trained researchers in their third- and fourth-grade year when they completed questionnaires and anthropometric assessments. Dietary restraint was assessed using the restrained eating subscale of the Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire (DEBQ), and weight was assessed using Body Mass Index z-scores (BMIz). Bidirectional associations between variables were examined using cross-lagged models controlling for children's sex, ethnicity, and weight in first grade. Results indicated that weight in grade 3 was related to greater dietary restraint in grade 4 (B = 0.20, p = 0.001), but dietary restraint in grade 3 was not associated with weight in grade 4 (B = 0.01, p = 0.64). Neither child sex nor race/ethnicity were associated with BMIz or dietary restraint at either time point. Findings from this study advance the existing limited understanding of eating behavior development among children and show that weight predicts increases in children's dietary restraint in middle childhood.

Emotional eating is associated with an increased risk of binge eating, eating in the absence of hunger and obesity risk. While previous studies with children and adolescents suggest that emotion regulation may be a key predictor of this dysregulated eating behavior, little is known about what other factors may be influencing the link between emotional regulation and emotional eating in adolescence. This multi-method longitudinal study ( n = 138) utilized linear regression models to examine associations between childhood emotion regulation, adolescent weight status and negative body image, and emotional eating at age 17. Emotion regulation predicted adolescent emotional eating and this link was moderated by weight status ( β = 1.19, p < 0.01) and negative body image ( β = -0.34, p < 0.01). Higher engagement in emotional eating was predicted by lower emotional regulation scores among normal-weight teens ( β = -0.46, p < 0.001) but not among overweight/obese teens ( β = 0.32, p > 0.10). Higher scores on emotion regulation were significantly associated with lower emotional eating at high ( β = -1.59, p < 0.001) and low ( β = -1.00, p < 0.01) levels of negative body image. Engagement in emotional eating was predicted by higher negative body image among overweight/obese teens only ( β = 0.70, p < 0.001). Our findings show that while better childhood emotion regulation skills are associated with lower emotional eating, weight status and negative body image influence this link and should be considered as important foci in future interventions that aim to reduce emotional eating in adolescence.

The prevalence of obesity among U.S. youth continues to increase, with many adolescents engaging in unhealthy eating behaviors. Increasingly, research points to the role of self-regulation in obesity development, yet existing work has largely focused on young children and/or clinical adult populations. This multi-method longitudinal study ( N = 153) utilized a path analysis to delineate links between emotion regulation (age 15), emotional eating and dietary restraint (age 16), and adiposity (% body fat) using a BodPod for body composition assessment (age 19). Emotion regulation was negatively associated with emotional eating ( β = -0.30, p < 0.001) and positively associated with dietary restraint ( β = 0.15, p < 0.05) at age 16, but was not associated with age 19 adiposity ( β = -0.01, p = ns). Emotional eating was positively associated with adiposity ( β = 0.24, p < 0.01). Indirect effects suggested that emotional eating, but not dietary restraint, at age 16 serves as a mechanism that helps explain the associations between emotion regulation and adiposity four years later. Results from this study suggest that both emotion regulation and emotional eating represent promising targets for that should be included in future interventions aimed at preventing adolescent obesity.