Mindfulness, personality and disordered eating

Understanding individual differences that may predispose certain individuals to disordered eating may help guide more effective screening and intervention. Furthermore, identification of how protective factors interact with such individual differences may help inform interventions strategy. The current study used a self-report questionnaire based on revised Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory completed by university students (N=332) to investigate if trait mindfulness moderated the relationship between personality and disordered eating. Results showed that the Behavioural Inhibition System was associated with increased emotional and external eating behaviours whilst the Behavioural Activation System was associated with increased restrictive eating. Trait mindfulness was associated with lower levels of all disordered eating patterns. Overall, there was no significant moderation effect of mindfulness, although the interaction between mindfulness and the Behavioural Inhibition System for external eating approached significance, with a small effect size suggesting that the benefits of mindfulness may be less for those with high sensitivity to goal conflict. The findings support the use of mindfulness as an intervention for disordered eating but highlight the importance of individual differences. •r-BIS and FFFS are positively correlated with external and emotional eating measures.•FFFS is positively correlated with restrictive eating measures.•Mindfulness is negatively correlated with external, emotional, and restrictive eating measures.•For emotional and restrictive eating measures, there is no moderating effect of mindfulness on r-BIS or FFFS.•For external eating, the moderating effect of mindfulness on r-BIS borders on significance.