Objective: We examined the association between lifetime nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI), emotion regulation, and food addiction (FA) in women (n = 220) with eating disorders (ED) compared with (n = 121) healthy controls (HC).
Method: Participants were assessed via face-to-face interviews for ED diagnosis and lifetime NSSI. FA was assessed with Yale Food Addiction Scale 2.0 and emotion regulation using the Difficulty in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS).
Results: The prevalence of FA was significantly higher among women with an ED when compared with HC (75.9% vs. 4.1%, p < 0.001). Similarly, subjects presenting FA showed a high prevalence of lifetime NSSI, in both ED and HC (40.7% and 60.0%, respectively). Our predictive model revealed FA and DERS total scores as indicators of the presence of lifetime NSSI independent of group assignment, ED diagnosis, and age.
Conclusions: These findings suggest a shared aetiology between ED, NSSI, and FA, explained possibly in part by emotion-regulation deficits.
Keywords: eating disorders; food addiction; nonsuicidal self-injury; risk factors; self-harm behaviours.
© 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and Eating Disorders Association.