The Contribution of Difficulties in Separation–Individuation and Emotional Regulation to Obesity Among Adolescent Girls

Obesity has become the leading health problem in the Western World. Although a large number of psychosocial risk factors for the development of obesity have been established this causal relationship is not yet clear. The current study proposes a model that focuses on the psychological mechanisms contributing to the development of obesity. The model shows that girls who did not experience an intact separation process displayed hardship in the process of regulating negative affect. The harm to the emotional regulation processes leads to the girls’ somatic outlet for emotions, in our case emotional eating leading to obesity. Understanding those mechanisms enables proper interventions in preventing and overcoming obesity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved). (journal abstract)