Exploring the contributions of affective constructs and interoceptive awareness to feeling fat

Cate Morales; Sarah C Dolan; Drew A Anderson; Lisa M Anderson; Erin E Reilly

doi:10.1007/s40519-022-01490-8

Exploring the contributions of affective constructs and interoceptive awareness to feeling fat

Eat Weight Disord. 2022 Dec;27(8):3533-3541. doi: 10.1007/s40519-022-01490-8. Epub 2022 Oct 19.

Authors

Cate Morales¹, Sarah C Dolan¹, Drew A Anderson², Lisa M Anderson^#³, Erin E Reilly^#⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychology, Hofstra University, Hempstead, USA.
² Department of Psychology, University at Albany, SUNY, Albany, USA.
³ Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Minnesota Medical School, 2450 Riverside Avenue, F229, Minneapolis, MN, 55454, USA. ande8936@umn.edu.
⁴ Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, USA.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Purpose: Feeling fat, a subjective feeling of being overweight that does not always correspond to actual body weight, is commonly reported in patients with an eating disorder. Research suggests that feeling fat relates to deficits in interoceptive awareness, the perception and integration of signals related to body states. Relatedly, recent work has linked feeling fat to affective constructs, such as depressive symptoms and guilt. The current study explores the unique relationships between feeling fat, self-reported, and objective IA, guilt, alexithymia, and depressive symptoms.

Method: Female undergraduates (N = 128) completed the 11th item of the Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire, the Toronto Alexithymia Scale, the Guilt subscale of the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule, and the Beck Depression Inventory-II. Participants also completed two IA measures: a heartbeat perception task and the Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness.

Results: All collected measures explained 56% of the variability in feeling fat. Depressive symptoms, self-reported IA, and BMI accounted for significant variability in feeling fat. Relative weights analyses revealed that depressive symptoms accounted for the most variability in feeling fat (19%). This finding remained significant after controlling for BMI, which also accounted for significant variability in feeling fat (25%).

Conclusions: Our results replicate previous findings that depressive symptoms relate significantly to feeling fat and extend this work by incorporating the role of interoceptive awareness, guilt, and alexithymia. Endorsement of feeling fat during an intake assessment may alert clinicians to assess for depressive symptoms, and focusing on depressive symptoms in treatment may improve feeling fat.

Level of evidence: Level I Evidence obtained from an experimental study.

Keywords: Depression; Eating disorders; Feeling fat; Guilt; Interoception; Interoceptive awareness.

MeSH terms

Affective Symptoms / psychology
Awareness*
Emotions
Female
Heart Rate
Humans
Interoception*

Abstract

MeSH terms

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