Interoceptive hunger, eating attitudes and beliefs

Summary & key facts

Researchers surveyed mainly young university students about how hunger feels just before a main meal and then retested many about 1 month later. They found hunger sensations fit 11 different dimensions, that people differ in which sensations they report, and that those reports were stable over time. Although there was a lot of individual variation, the combinations people used covered only about 4% of all possible ways the items could combine. Greater variation in hunger sensations was associated with more dysfunctional eating—especially uncontrolled eating—and some beliefs about what causes hunger were strongly linked to specific hunger sensations. The study used self-report data and exclud

Key facts:

• The study started with 180 participants who completed the main survey (147 female; mean BMI = 23.5, SD = 5.4; mean age = 21.5, SD = 7.0).
• A subset of 107 participants were retested about 1 month later to assess reliability of their hunger reports.
• Responses to a 48-item hunger questionnaire were analyzed and produced 11 distinct dimensions of interoceptive hunger sensations.
• Participants showed many different combinations of hunger sensations, but those combinations represented only about 4% of all possible permutations of the questionnaire items.
• Hunger reports were found to be reliable across the ~1-month retest (the paper reports stability of responses over time).
• Greater variability in reported hunger sensations was associated with higher scores on measures of dysfunctional eating, with the strongest links to uncontrolled eating (measured using the Three Factor Eating Questionnaire).
• The researchers developed a new measure of hunger beliefs and found that some hunger beliefs were strongly related to particular aspects of reported interoceptive hunger.
• The sample excluded people with a history or current diagnosis of an eating disorder and relied on self-report data from mostly young university students, which limits how broadly the results can be generalized.

Abstract

Interoceptive individual differences have garnered interest because of their relationship with mental health. One type of individual difference that has received little attention is variability in the sensation/s that are understood to mean a particular interoceptive state, something that may be especially relevant for hunger. We examined if interoceptive hunger is multidimensional and idiosyncratic, if it is reliable, and if it is linked to dysfunctional eating and beliefs about the causes of hunger. Participants completed a survey just before a main meal, with most retested around 1 month later. We found that interoceptive hunger has 11 dimensions, and while people differ considerably in their combinations of interoceptive hungers, these represent only 4% of all possible permutations. Hunger reports were reliable. We found relationships between variability in hunger interoception and dysfunctional eating, especially for uncontrolled eating. We also found that hunger beliefs were in some cases strongly related to aspects of hunger interoception. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Topics

Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes Body Image and Dysmorphia Studies Psychosomatic Disorders and Their Treatments

Categories

Health Sciences Medicine Psychiatry and Mental health

Tags

Clinical psychology Cognitive psychology Developmental psychology Dysfunctional family Interoception Neuroscience Perception Psychology Sensation