The Role of Emotion Regulation Difficulties in Predicting Disordered Eating Among Students: Implication for Health Promotion

emotion regulation difficulty predicts development of disordered eating, but why emotion regulation difficulty may lead to disordered eating remains an unanswered question. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of emotion regulation difficulty and its’ dimensions in predicting disordered eating among student. This cross-sectional study on 264 student of Allameh Tabataba’i University who were selected by multiple cluster sampling, was conducted. Participants responded to the questionnaires. Data were analyzed using Pearson correlation coefficient and stepwise regression. Results showed that there was significant internal correlate between emotion regulation difficulty and its dimensions (excluding the positive refocusing) with disordered eating behaviors (P<0.01). Also, the results of stepwise regression analysis showed that of the dimensions of emotion regulation difficulty variable only catastrophizing, blame others and acceptance could significantly predict about 26% of the variance of disordered eating behaviors (P<0.01). This study results suggest the importance of emotion regulation difficulty in predicting disordered eating behaviors and this factor can explain the high degree of variability of disordered Eating.