Intuitive Eating and Affect in Real Time: An Ecological Momentary Assessment Study Comparing Heterosexual and Sexual Minority Women.

Authors

Kaitlyn E Ryan, Jennifer L Shipley, Abby L Braitman, Robin J Lewis, Kristin E Heron

Published in

The International journal of eating disorders. Jul 31, 2026. Epub Jul 31, 2026.

Abstract

Changes in affect may precede or follow intuitive eating (IE) behaviors; however, few studies have examined these associations temporally. Affect-IE processes may also differ between sexual minority women (SMW) and heterosexual women (HW). The current study examined associations between positive and negative affect before and after IE, and whether they differed by sexual orientation.
Participants were 296 cisgender women (146 SMW, 150 HW) who binge eat aged 18-30 who completed 14 days of EMA measures. Data were analyzed using multilevel lagged models with sexual orientation as a moderator.
Higher positive affect was associated with greater subsequent enjoyment of foods but not other IE behaviors. Lower negative affect was associated with greater subsequent enjoyment and permission to eat. Regarding prior IE and current positive affect, enjoyment of foods and trusting one's body were associated with higher positive affect across participants, while permission to eat demonstrated significant linear and cubic associations. Only HW demonstrated an association between prior performance-based eating and positive affect. For negative affect, higher prior eating to support performance, trusting one's body, and enjoyment of food were associated with lower negative affect among all participants, whereas the prior permission to eat-negative affect association was significant for only SMW.
Affect is temporally linked with some IE behaviors, more often following than preceding them, with subsequent higher positive and lower negative affect potentially reinforcing IE over time. SMW and HW showed largely similar patterns with a few differences, warranting continued investigation into the underlying mechanisms.

PMID:
42538761
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 01 Aug 2026.

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