Problematic eating behaviors in patients undergoing bariatric surgery: studying their relationship with psychopathology

This study explored the associations between individuals presenting different problematic eating behaviors (Objective/Subjective binge-eating - OBE/SBE - and Compulsive/Non-compulsive grazing - C_Grazing/NC_Grazing) and eating disorder related symptoms. About 163 pre- and 131 post-bariatric patients were assessed. Assessment included: Face-to-face clinical interview to assess binge-eating and grazing episodes, and self-report measures to assess eating disorder symptomatology, psychological distress, and negative urgency. OBE and NC_Grazing were the problematic eating behaviors most and least associated with psychopathology, respectively. OBE and C_Grazing uniquely accounted for the significant variance in the most disordered eating variables. Our findings emphasize the need for the conceptualization of grazing behavior in the spectrum of disordered eating.
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This study was partially conducted at Psychology Research Centre (PSI/01662), University of Minho, and supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology and the Portuguese Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education through national funds, and co-financed by FEDER through COMPETE2020 under the PT2020 Partnership Agreement (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007653), by the following grants to E.C. (IF/01219/2014 and POCI-01-0145-FEDER-028209), M.de.L. (UMINHO/BI/334/2017) and doctoral scholarship to A.P.-B. (SFRH/BD/104159/2014). The funding body had no role in the design, collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; the writing of the manuscript; or the decision to submit the manuscript for publication.