The mediating role of alexithymia in prediction of nutritional attitudes based on difficulties in emotion regulation

Unhealthy nutritional attitudes and emotion regulation difficulties are among the most important problems among young people, but the key question is whether natural cognition plays a mediating role in emotion regulation difficulties and nutritional attitudes?

The aim of this study was to investigate the mediating role of natural misery in predicting nutritional attitudes based on emotion regulation difficulties.

It was a descriptive-correlational one and was performed on 130 students of Payam Noor Najafabad University who were selected by available sampling method. Research questionnaires included Toronto Natural Intelligence Scale (1994), Garner & Garfinkel (1979) Nutrition Attitude Scale, and Gratz & Roemer (2004) Emotion Regulation Scale. Data were analyzed using structural equation method.

The results showed that direct path coefficients between predictor (emotion regulation difficulties) and criterion variable (nutritional attitudes) were not significant (p>0/05), but indirect path coefficients between These variables were significant with mediation of natural odor (p<0/05).

Natural curiosity mediates the prediction of nutritional attitudes based on the difficulty of emotion regulation, which demonstrates the role of natural curiosity in emotion regulation and improvement of nutritional attitudes.