Negative feelings and the desire to eat in bulimia nervosa

Abstract

This study examines a broad range of negative feelings as possible antecedents of binge eating in bulimia nervosa (BN). Another goal is to explore the connection between negative feelings and the desire to eat as recorded continuously during two consecutive days. This is the first study comparing data from BN patients with a relevant clinical control group. Forty female BN patients, 40 female panic disorder (PD) patients, and 40 healthy women continuously recorded their feelings and the desire to eat while in their natural environment. Both patient groups reported more negative feelings than the healthy controls. BN patients had higher within-subject correlations between most negative feelings and the desire to eat than the two control groups. BN patients rated most feelings more negatively in the hour prior to binge eating than during the rest of the day. BN patients' general mood state worsened after binge eating but returned to prebinge levels after purging. The study provides additional evidence that unspecific negative feelings play an important role in the context of binge-eating behavior in BN.