Structural equation modeling of eating attitude based on self-differentiation with the mediation of emotion regulation difficulty in college students

Today, eating disorders are one of the most common mental disorders that cause many problems in physical health, mental functioning, and quality of life. This research was conducted with the aim of modeling structural equations of eating attitude based on self-differentiation with the mediation of emotion regulation difficulty in students of Islamic Azad University, Zanjan branch.

The method of conducting the research was correlational using the SEM structural equation modeling method and the statistical population of this research included all undergraduate students in the number of 4730 people. 399 people were selected by cluster sampling method. The research tools included Garner and Garfinkel's (1979) eating attitude test, Drake, Murdock, Marszalek and Barber's (2015) short form of differentiation inventory and Gratz and Roemer's (2004) emotion regulation difficulty scale. To collect data, descriptive and inferential statistics and structural equations were used using SPSS26 and AMOS24 software. Bootstrap method was used in MACRO program to analyze mediating relationships.

The findings showed that the relationship between the structural models of eating attitude based on self-differentiation with the mediation of students' emotion regulation difficulty has a good fit. Differentiation relationship with negative and inverse eating attitude (β=0.33; P<0.001), the relationship of emotion regulation difficulty with direct and positive eating attitude has been estimated (β=0.23; P=0.010).

The findings of this study emphasize the effective role of differentiation and emotion regulation in students' eating disorder attitude. Therefore, the necessary training to regulate and control emotions should be done in this important segment of the society, in order to prevent the complications and consequences of disordered eating attitude, which is eating disorders.