The relationship between adult eating attitudes and difficulty regulating emotion, attachment styles and intolerance of uncertainty

This research examines the relationship between adult eating behaviour and difficulty of regulating emotion, attachment styles, intolerance of uncertainty. The study group in the research consists of 390 adults with 214 females and 176 males, between the ages of 18-57, participating from various provinces of Turkey. In the research, convenience sampling was used as a sampling method and the participants were reached online via Google Form. The data were collected by using the Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire (DEBQ), the Short Version of the Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale (IUS-12), Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS), and the Inventory of Experiences in Close Relationships-Revised. In order to interpret the data, frequency analysis, one-way anova test, independent samples t-test, kruskal wallis test, pearson correlation test were performed. The research revealed that eating attitudes is significantly correlated with difficulty of regulating emotion and intolerance of uncertainty. The findings showed that there is a significant correlation between emotional eating and anxious attachment style, intolerance of uncertainty and difficulty of regulating emotion while there is a significant correlation between external eating and intolerance of uncertainty, avoidant attacment style and difficulty of regulating emotion. Another result of the research was that restrained eating is significantly correlated with intolerance of uncertainty. In addition, it was found that eating attitudes differ depending on some demographic variables such as age, gender, counseling for nutrition, receiving psychological support, educational status, body dissatisfaction and weight assessment. Keywords: Adult Eating Behaviour, Difficulty Regulating Emotion, Attachment Styles, Intolerance of Uncertainty