Parental Deployment and Military Children: A Century of Research

Wadsworth, Shelley MacDermid; Whiteman, Shawn D.; Lester, Patricia; Stander, Valerie A.; Christ, Sharon L.

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-87759-0_7

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…Adolescent military dependents (i.e., children of military service members) face unique stressors that impact the entire family unit (Wadsworth et al, 2022), including parental deployments and frequent relocations, and are at increased risk for emotional distress (Cramm et al, 2019; Gorman et al, 2009). Additionally, military‐dependent youth are at elevated risk for disinhibited eating, which encompasses a variety of eating behaviors characterized by a lack of restraint over eating (Read & McComiskey, 2021; Schvey et al, 2015; Shomaker et al, 2011; Swanson et al, 2011; Waasdorp et al, 2007).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Emotional dysregulation moderates the relation between perceived stress and emotional eating in adolescent military dependents

Spinner,

Thompson,

Bauman

et al. 2024

Intl J Eating Disorders

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ObjectiveAdolescent children of US service members (i.e., military‐dependent youth) face unique stressors that increase risk for various forms of disinhibited eating, including emotional eating. Difficulties with adaptively responding to stress and aversive emotions may play an important role in emotional eating. This study examined emotion dysregulation as a potential moderator of the association between perceived stress and emotional eating in adolescent military dependents.MethodParticipants were military‐dependent youth (N = 163, 57.7% female, Mage = 14.5 ± 1.6, MBMI‐z = 1.9 ± 0.4) at risk for adult binge‐eating disorder and high weight enrolled in a randomized controlled prevention trial. Prior to intervention, participants completed questionnaires assessing perceived stress and emotional eating. Parents completed a questionnaire assessing their adolescent's emotion dysregulation. Moderation analyses were conducted using the PROCESS macro in SPSS and adjusted for theoretically relevant sociodemographic covariates.ResultsThe interaction between adolescent perceived stress and emotion dysregulation (parent‐reported about the adolescent) in relation to adolescent emotional eating was found to be significant, such that higher emotion dysregulation magnified the association between perceived stress and emotional eating (p = .010). Examination of simple slopes indicated that associations between perceived stress and emotional eating were strongest for youth with above‐average emotion dysregulation, and non‐significant for youth with average or below‐average emotion dysregulation.DiscussionFindings suggest that greater emotion dysregulation may increase risk for emotional eating in response to stress among military‐dependent youth at risk for binge‐eating disorder or high weight. Improving emotion regulation skills may be a useful target for eating disorder prevention among youth who are at risk for emotional eating.Public SignificancePrior research has shown that adolescent military dependents are at increased risk for eating disorders and high weight. The current study found that emotion dysregulation moderated the relationship between perceived stress and emotional eating among military‐dependent youth. There may be clinical utility in intervening on emotion regulation for adolescent dependents at particular risk for emotional eating and subsequent eating disorders.

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