General versus hunger/satiety-specific interoceptive sensibility in predicting disordered eating

Dysfunctional interoceptive processing of hunger and satiety cues is particularly relevant to disordered eating behaviors. However, researchers often rely on general measures of interoceptive sensibility (IS1; self-reported experience of internal bodily cues) which conflate interoceptive processes across biological systems (e.g., gastric, cardiac) when assessing the role of interoception in disordered eating. Participants (N = 213; 50% female, age M = 20.77 years) were recruited from a large southeastern university for this online study and completed the Intuitive Eating Scale-2 (hunger/satiety-specific), the Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness-2 (general), and the Eating Disorder Inventory Interoceptive Awareness Subscale (general) as measures of IS. The Eating Pathology Symptoms Inventory was used to assess disordered eating attitudes and behaviors. Controlling for sex and body mass index, hunger/satiety-specific IS was associated with binge eating, purging, and cognitive restraint over and above general IS measures and emerged as the dominant predictor of each. Hunger/satiety-specific IS did not predict restricting behavior. Dysfunctional processing of hunger and satiety cues may be a particularly important risk factor to target in screenings and interventions for disordered eating. Findings highlight the importance of careful selection of IS measures in research and targeting hunger/ satiety-specific IS in clinical interventions for disordered eating.

Automated summary

Dysfunctional processing of hunger and satiety cues is an important risk factor for disordered eating. This study found that hunger/satiety-specific interoceptive sensibility is associated with binge eating, purging, and cognitive restraint, independent of general interoceptive measures. These findings highlight the importance of targeting hunger/satiety-specific interoception in interventions for disordered eating.