Eating Disorders: Body Conscious? Interoceptive Awareness, Measured by Heartbeat Perception, Is Negatively Correlated With Self-Objectification.

Body conscious? Interoceptive awareness, measured by heartbeat perception, is negatively correlated with self-objectification.

Filed under: Eating Disorders

PLoS One. 2013; 8(2): e55568
Ainley V, Tsakiris M

‘Self-objectification’ is the tendency to experience one’s body principally as an object, to be evaluated for its appearance rather than for its effectiveness. Within objectification theory, it has been proposed that self-objectification accounts for the poorer interoceptive awareness observed in women, as measured by heartbeat perception. Our study is, we believe, the first specifically to test this relationship.Using a well-validated and reliable heartbeat perception task, we measured interoceptive awareness in women and compared this with their scores on the Self-Objectification Questionnaire, the Self-Consciousness Scale and the Body Consciousness Questionnaire. Interoceptive awareness was negatively correlated with self-objectification. Interoceptive awareness, public body consciousness and private body consciousness together explained 31% of the variance in self-objectification. However, private body consciousness was not significantly correlated with interoceptive awareness, which may explain the many nonsignificant results in self-objectification studies that have used private body consciousness as a measure of body awareness.We propose interoceptive awareness, assessed by heartbeat perception, as a measure of body awareness in self-objectification studies. Our findings have implications for those clinical conditions, in women, which are characterised by self-objectification and low interoceptive awareness, such as eating disorders.
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Binge Eating and Binge Drinking Behaviors: individual differences in adolescents’ identity styles.

Filed under: Eating Disorders

J Health Psychol. 2013 Feb 12;
Laghi F, Baiocco R, Liga F, Lonigro A, Baumgartner E

Considering the significant negative consequences that are directly related to binge eat and drink behaviors, many studies have explored the reasons why adolescents engage in them. This study examined the differences in the development, maintenance, and co-occurrence of “binge” behaviors associated with adolescent’s identity style and the level of commitment. One thousand four hundred Italian adolescents completed self-report measures assessing binge behaviors and identity styles. Overall, results show that diffused adolescents were more likely to be engaged in binge eating and binge drinking behaviors than others, validating the idea that the achievement of a consolidated ego identity is important for enhancing well-being.
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Gastric emptying and Ca(2+) and K(+) channels of circular smooth muscle cells in diet-induced obese prone and resistant rats.

Filed under: Eating Disorders

Obesity (Silver Spring). 2012 Aug 28;
Li S, Maude-Griffin R, Pullan AJ, Chen JD

Accelerated gastric emptying which precipitates hunger and frequent eating could be a potential factor in the development of obesity. The aim of this study was to study gastric emptying in diet-induced obese-Prone (DIO-P) and DIO-Resistant (DIO-R) rats and explore possible differences in electrical properties of calcium (Ca(2+) ) and potassium (K(+) ) channels of antral circular smooth muscle cells (SMCs). Whole-cell patch clamp technique was used to measure Ca(2+) and K(+) currents in single SMCs. Gastric emptying was evaluated 90 min after the ingestion of a solid meal. Solid gastric emptying in the DIO-P rats was significantly faster compared to that in the DIO-R rats. The peak amplitude of L-type Ca(2+) current (I(Ba,L) ) at 10 mV in DIO-P rats was greater than that in DIO-R rats without alternation of the current-voltage curve and voltage dependent activation and inactivation. The half maximal inactivation voltage of transient outward K(+) current (I(Kto) ) was more depolarized (?4 mV) in DIO-P rats compared with that in DIO-R rats. No difference was found in the current density or recovery kinetics of I(Kto) between two groups. The current density of delayed rectifier K(+) current (I(Kdr) ), which was sensitive to tetraethylammonium chloride but not 4-aminopyridine was lower in DIO-P rats than that in DIO-R rats. Our data suggested that the accelerated gastric emptying in DIO-P rats might be attributed to a higher density of I(Ba,L) , depolarizing shift of inactivation curve of I(Kto) and lower density of I(Kdr) observed in the antral SMCs of DIO-P rats.
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Preoperative lifestyle intervention in bariatric surgery: Initial results from a randomized, controlled trial.

Filed under: Eating Disorders

Obesity (Silver Spring). 2012 Oct 3;
Kalarchian MA, Marcus MD, Courcoulas AP, Cheng Y, Levine MD

In this initial report, we document preoperative outcomes of a behavioral lifestyle intervention delivered to patients prior to bariatric surgery. Participants (N = 240) were 86.7% female, 82.9% white, 52.3% married, and 85.8% had > high school education. Mean BMI was 47.9 ± 6.7 kg/m(2) and age was 45.2 ± 11 years. After completing a baseline assessment, candidates for surgery were randomized to a 6-month, evidence-informed, manualized lifestyle intervention (LIFESTYLE, n = 121) or to preoperative care as usual (USUAL CARE, n = 119). At 6 months, 187 participants remained candidates for bariatric surgery and were included in the analyses. Results indicated that LIFESTYLE participants lost significantly more weight than those receiving USUAL CARE [8.3 ± 7.8 kg vs. 3.3 ± 5.5 kg, F(1,183) = 23.6, p < 0.0001], with an effect size of 0.72. Additionally, logistic regression modeling indicated that LIFESTYLE patients were significantly more likely to lose at least 5% of initial body weight than those in USUAL CARE (OR [95% CI] = 2.94 [1.253, 6.903]), as were participants who were heavier (OR [95% CI] = 1.07 [1.001-1.14] for each unit increase in BMI) or with larger improvements in eating behaviors (OR [95% CI] = 1.1 [1.049, 1.145] for each unit increase on the Eating Behavior Inventory). A behavioral lifestyle intervention for severely overweight individuals leads to clinically significant weight loss prior to bariatric surgery. Post-surgery follow-up will allow us to examine the impact of the preoperative intervention on postoperative outcomes. HubMed – eating

 

Divergent neural substrates of inhibitory control in binge eating disorder relative to other manifestations of obesity.

Filed under: Eating Disorders

Obesity (Silver Spring). 2012 Oct 3;
Balodis IM, Molina ND, Kober H, Worhunsky PD, White MA, Sinha R, Grilo CM, Potenza MN

An important endeavor involves increasing our understanding of biobehavioral processes underlying different types of obesity. The current study investigated the neural correlates of cognitive control (involving conflict monitoring and response inhibition) in obese individuals with binge eating disorder (BED) as compared to BMI-matched non-BED obese (OB) individuals and lean comparison (LC) participants. Alterations in cognitive control may contribute to differences in behavioral control over eating behaviors in BED and obesity. Participants underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while completing the Stroop color-word interference task. Relative to the OB and LC groups, activity in the BED group was differentiated by relative hypoactivity in brain areas involved in self-regulation and impulse control. Specifically, the BED group showed diminished activity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and insula during Stroop performance. In addition, dietary restraint scores were negatively correlated with right IFG and vmPFC activation in the BED group, but not in the OB or HC groups. Thus, BED individuals’ diminished ability to recruit impulse-control-related brain regions appears associated with impaired dietary restraint. The observed differences in neural correlates of inhibitory processing in BED relative to OB and LC groups suggest distinct neurobiological contributions to binge eating as a subgroup of obese individuals.
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