Attachment to God moderates the relation between sociocultural pressure and eating disorder symptoms as mediated by emotional eating

Abstract

Research suggests that secure attachment to God protects against eating disorder risk factors, but studies have not examined how attachment to God might moderate the effects of sociocultural pressure on eating disorder symptoms. Moreover, models testing moderation in combination with mediation by eating in response to negative emotions have not been tested. Questionnaires collected from 102 women (19–57 years) recruited from Amazon's Mechanical Turk were analysed. Participants had diverse religious affiliations and beliefs. Insecure-anxious attachment to God moderated the effect of sociocultural pressure on eating disorder symptoms; women with higher anxious attachment were more susceptible to the effects of sociocultural pressures. Eating in response to negative emotions mediated the relation between sociocultural pressure and eating disorder symptoms, and moderated mediation analyses revealed that participants with average or above-average levels of anxious God attachment had an increase in emotional eating and consequent eating disorder symptoms as a result of sociocultural pressure.

Keywords:

• attachment to God
• eating disorder symptoms
• sociocultural pressure
• emotional eating

Notes

1 Two items (“shaky” and “excited”) removed were due to factor and reliability analyses as well as construct validity concerns (e.g., these did not represent negative emotions).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Travis Research Institute.