Too stressed to self-regulate? Associations between stress, self-reported executive function, disinhibited eating, and BMI in women

Stress is associated with obesity. Executive Function (EF), a set of behavioral regulation capacities, may play mediating role in this relation if lower EF increases disinhibited eating. Participants were 249 women who completed an online survey. We measured stress using Cohen's Perceived Stress Scale, EF using the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF), disinhibited eating using the Three Factor Eating Questionnaire, and self-reported BMI. We used path analysis on this cross-sectional sample of women to test our hypothesis that higher stress is associated with reduced EF, greater disinhibited eating, and higher BMI and tested the indirect effects from stress to disinhibited eating and from stress to BMI. Stress was related to lower EF (beta = 0.53 p < .001), lower EF was related to greater disinhibited eating (beta = 0.34, p < .001), and disinhibited eating was related to higher BMI (beta = 0.37, p < .001). There was an indirect effect of stress on disinhibited eating through EF (beta = 0.18, SE = 0.04, p < .001) and an indirect effect of stress on BMI through EF and disinhibited eating (beta = 0.07, SE = 0.02, p < .001). Women with higher stress may have higher BMI, in part due to reduced EF and disinhibited eating, suggesting that interventions designed to improve stress management and EF may also improve success with weight control, at least in this population of women.