ArticleJournal of eating disorders2025
Childhood traumatic experiences and addiction-like eating behaviors: the mediating roles of attachment, mentalization, and emotional eating.
Article in Journal of eating disorders, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Global Sleep Quality and Uncontrolled Eating Among Romanian Healthcare Students: The Mediating Pathway of Emotional Eating.Clocks & sleep · 2026Article
- Adult attachment insecurity and uncertain reflective functioning as mediators between traumatic experiences and alexithymia in young adults: a structural equation modeling approach.BMC psychology · 2026Article
- Childhood adversity and disordered eating: the mediator role of food reward drive.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Insecure attachment and impaired reflective functioning mediate the association between childhood trauma and grazing behavior.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
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Abstract
introductionChildhood traumatic experiences (CTEs) represent a significant vulnerability factor for addiction-like eating behaviors, yet the underlying developmental pathways remain poorly understood. According to infancy research and attachment theory, this study tested a comprehensive mediation model examining how CTEs contribute to addiction-like eating patterns (i.e., appetite drive and low diet control) through attachment insecurity, impaired reflective functioning, and emotional eating.
methodA cross-sectional study was conducted on a conventional non-clinical sample 1,014 Italian adults. Participants completed a set of validated and standardized scales. Structural equation modeling with latent variables and bootstrap resampling (10,000 iterations) was employed to test the hypothesized model.
resultsThe model demonstrated adequate fit and supported all hypotheses. CTEs significantly predicted both attachment anxiety, attachment avoidance, and impaired reflective functioning. Attachment anxiety, but not avoidance, mediated the relationship between CTEs and impaired reflective functioning. Also, impaired reflective functioning significantly predicted emotional eating, which in turn predicted both appetite drive and low dietary control. The complete mediation pathway was statistically significant, explaining 53.5% of variance in appetite drive and 20.6% in dietary control. DISCUSSION: These findings provide the first empirical support for a trauma-based developmental model of addiction-like eating behaviors. The results highlight the central role of attachment anxiety and impaired reflective functioning in linking early relational trauma to emotional eating and food addiction-like patterns. Clinical implications suggest that mentalization-based interventions targeting attachment insecurity and emotion regulation may be particularly beneficial for individuals with trauma histories and problematic eating behaviors.
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