The emerging field of nutritional neuroscience describes that regular consumption of highly processed, low-nutrient foods can exert pathophysiological effects on cognition and emotional functioning. However, the extent to which nutrient-dense and nutrient-poor dietary patterns relate to specific components of emotional regulation remains underexplored. This study examined associations among individual facets of emotional regulation and overall diet quality among adults. Frequent consumption of nutrient-poor foods and infrequent consumption of nutrient-dense foods were hypothesized to be associated with higher emotional dysregulation scores. Adults completed a survey including validated measures of diet quality and emotional regulation: the Rapid Eating Assessment for Participants (REAP-S v.2), and the Difficulties in Emotional Regulation Scale - Short Form (DERS-SF). Pearson correlation coefficients were calculated in SPSS version 28. Adults (N = 1,313) showed significant associations (p < 0.01) between emotional dysregulation and all three dietary indicators: the healthy eating pattern subscale, low nutrient density food subscale, and the REAP total score. Item-level analyses indicated that difficulties related to emotional hopelessness, lower emotional awareness, and poorer behavioral control were most strongly associated with dietary patterns. Adults reporting greater emotional hopelessness, such as believing that nothing could be done to feel better when upset, consistently reported poorer overall diet quality, lower intake of nutrient-dense foods, and higher consumption of low-nutrient-density foods (all p < 0.01). Behavioral dyscontrol, emotional despair, and recovering from distress demonstrated similar associations across all dietary measures. At the subscale level, broader facets of emotional dysregulation were also meaningfully related to specific dietary patterns. Higher scores on the Strategies and Non-acceptance subscales were each associated with more frequent consumption of ultra-processed foods (both p < 0.01). In contrast, greater difficulty maintaining goal-directed behavior (Goals subscale) was linked with lower healthy eating pattern scores. Higher awareness scores were associated with healthier eating patterns (both p < 0.01). Among adults, emotional hopelessness, low emotional awareness, and behavioral dyscontrol emerged as the components of emotional dysregulation most consistently associated with poorer diet quality. These findings highlight specific regulatory challenges as potential targets for interventions to improve both dietary patterns and mental health outcomes. Physiologically, chronic emotional distress may impair prefrontal regulatory pathways and enhance stress-related reward seeking, contributing to preferences for low-nutrient, energy-dense foods. This abstract was presented at the American Physiology Summit 2026 and is only available in HTML format. There is no downloadable file or PDF version. The Physiology editorial board was not involved in the peer review process.
Naeem et al. (Fri,) studied this question.