The aim of this research was to present a structural modeling of the mediating role of executive functions in the relationship between emotion regulation, self-compassion, and food addiction. The findings showed that executive functions mediate the relationship between emotion regulation, self-compassion, and food addiction. Self-compassion is linked to food addiction through executive functions, but it is not directly or singly correlated, yet emotion regulation is associated both directly and indirectly.
Emotion dysregulation, executive functions, and food addiction
The findings revealed that there is a positive and significant relationship between emotion regulation and food addiction. Accordingly, it can be stated that the higher the score acquired by the person in emotion dysregulation, the higher their score would also be in food addiction. This is in line with the results of other studies evaluating the relationship between emotion regulation and food addiction (12, 34, 35). For example, emotion dysregulation has been observed in many psychological health issues including different types of eating disorders and drug abuse. Indeed, bulimia behavior is a way for regulating and modifying emotions especially the negative ones (12, 34, 35). In other words, when the person experiences emotions especially negative and unpleasant ones, to reduce them and bring them to a tolerable level, they employ overeating behavior. This is because they are not able to use adaptive and healthy skills of emotion regulation (12). These findings can also be explained by Gross emotion regulation theory. According to Gross, the emotion generation process has four components of situation, attention, arousal, and response. Meanwhile, emotion regulation strategies alter the emotion path. Here, food addiction also as a maladaptive strategy for emotion regulation can change the path of negative emotions (36). Gross states that emotion regulation can be done with the aims of reducing, reinforcing, or maintaining positive or negative emotional experiences (37, 38). Furthermore, according to Gross theory, emotion regulation techniques that focus on the primary stages of emotional processing process (antecedent-focused) are more effective than the techniques that are response oriented (39). Accordingly, we can conclude that binge eating behavior in food addiction is indeed a response, and as stated earlier response-oriented techniques are less effective. Accordingly, inefficacy in emotion regulation skills may lead to food addiction.
The findings showed that executive functions reinforce the relationship between emotion dysregulation and food addiction. Numerous studies have shown that there is a relationship between executive functions of the brain and different types of psychological health issues. These findings are in line with the results of other researchers (4, 12, 40, 41). for example, Oliveira et al. (4) found that cognitive defunctions and inhibitory control are associated with food addiction. Research has also shown that patients suffering from eating disorders who have characteristics such as emotion dysregulation, executive problems, and impulsive personality are more susceptible to different types of drug abuse disorders (40). These results also concur with the findings obtained by Pivarunas, B & Connor (12). As explanation, it can be stated that when a person does not have the necessary skills for management of emotions, emotion dysregulation occurs. When the person experiences negative emotions, due to lacking skills of emotion regulation, they would act impulsively. This impulsive action itself is a sign of weakness in executive functions especially inhibitory control. In addition, working memory which is one of the executive functions also provides cognitive resources to the person, which can be harnessed when experiencing emotions for managing them (41). Thus, when the person has deficit in inhibition control and working memory, regulation and modification of emotions especially negative emotions would be difficult. Meanwhile, due to impulsivity, they may use maladaptive strategies such as polyphagia and overeating foods that are very sweet, fatty, or salty for modifying emotions. Therefore, training emotion regulation skills can be one of the courses of action for treating food addiction. In addition, by presenting exercises for improving inhibition control and working memory, we can facilitate the influence of emotion regulation skills.
Self-compassion, executive functions, and food addiction
Self-compassion and food addiction had a significant relationship with mediation of executive functions. This is also in line with the findings of other studies (16, 18, 42–47). Different studies have indicated that self-compassion is one of the adaptive skills of emotion regulation (46). As mentioned above, in case of absence of suitable emotion regulation skills and experiencing negative emotions, individuals may act impulsively. Alternatively, due to deficit of cognitive resources, they may not be able to manage their emotions adaptively when experiencing them (12, 41). In other words, when the person has high self-compassion, they would have fewer problems in executive functions and vice versa. Otherwise, the person would act impulsively for emotion regulation towards overeating or consuming unhealthy foods. Here, if the person has self-compassion, they would treat this behavior gently, and would sympathize with themselves. This causes mitigation of negative emotions and their regulation. When experiencing negative emotions, such individuals can modify and endure them adaptively. These research studies can explain why executive dysfunctions especially inhibitory control reinforce and make the negative relationship between self-compassion as an emotion regulation skill and food addiction significant. One of the components of self-compassion is self-kindness and common humanity. A person who has learned these two components knows that they are not impeccable and are open to mistakes. However, if they have low self-kindness and common humanity, negative emotions prevail and the person would again act impulsively (48). Another component of self-compassion is mindfulness. Mindful individuals show less impulsive behavior. According to the research results, mindfulness can lead to improved working memory, cognitive flexibility, and inhibitory control (43, 44, 47). Thus, we can conclude that the individuals with higher levels of self-compassion would acquire lower scores of food addiction. As such, we can consider training self-compassion scale as one of the solutions for treating food addiction.
Our findings show that in the hypothetical model, food addiction and self-compassion do not have a direct relationship. This seems to be in contradiction to previous findings (16, 42, 45). Previous studies have indicated that there is a negative relationship between self-compassion and chocolate addiction, which is one of the subsets of food addiction. This means the higher the score gained by the subject in chocolate addiction, the lower their self-compassion would be (16). Further, higher levels of self-compassion have been associated with lower levels of bulimia nervosa (45). In addition, a higher score in self-compassion has been associated with fewer symptoms of eating disorders (42). The most important interpretation for the difference of this finding with other studies is use of different statistical analyses. In this study, we employed path analysis method in order to measure the mediating role of executive functions in the relationship between self-compassion and food addiction. As such, a considerable portion of the variance is explained by executive functions, which itself confirms our model. However, it causes the direct relationship between self-compassion and food addiction not to become significant. Meanwhile, in other studies such as the one by Taylor et al. (42), this mediating variable has not been used. Other reasons can include the different statistical populations and sample, various measurement instruments, as well as the fact that most of the mentioned studies have measured constructs similar to food addiction such as overeating or different types of eating disorders.
Limitations and suggestions
This study has been novel as it has examined the mediating role of executive functions in the relationship between self-compassion and food addiction as well as emotion regulation and food addiction. Nevertheless, as with any studies, it has had some limitations. Firstly, in this research nonrandomized convenience sampling method has been used. Further, this study has been implemented completely using self-report questionnaires, while there are other instruments for measuring executive function variables. In addition, the method of this research has been structural equation modeling; thus, causal relations cannot be deduced from that. Therefore, generalization of the research findings should be done cautiously. For future studies, it is recommended to use computerized instruments for measuring executive functions such as IVA test. Further, for generalizing the findings, randomized sampling would be better. In addition, as mentioned earlier, the role of inhibitory control skills and working memory in explaining the executive functions has been greater than that of cognitive flexibility. It is suggested for future studies to examine the role of this variable itself as an exogenous variable in the relationship between food addiction and emotion regulation and self-compassion.