The Self-Regulation of Eating: How Psychological, Emotional, and Biological Factors Shape Lifestyles, Food-Related Decisions, and Obesity

Eating is not only a response to hunger — it is a series of decisions made under emotional and cognitive pressure. What people choose to eat, how much, and when is continuously shaped by how they feel and how well they can regulate those feelings. A growing body of evidence points to a specific set of psychological drivers behind these decisions: emotion regulation, stress reactivity, anxiety, impulsivity, motivation, and self-control. Together, these processes help explain why individuals with similar nutritional knowledge and access to food make markedly different dietary choices, and why healthy intentions so often fail to translate into healthy behavior.Despite considerable interest in the link between emotion and eating, the mechanisms that connect affective states to concrete food-related decisions remain poorly specified. Current evidence is fragmented across disciplines, populations, and methods, and rarely distinguishes the distinct roles of emotion regulation strategies, trait and state impulsivity, motivational orientation, and self-control capacity. As a result, we lack integrative models of how these processes interact in the moment of choice — and this gap directly limits our ability to design interventions that reliably promote healthy dietary behaviors and prevent nutrition-related health problems.This Research Topic focuses specifically on the emotional and self-regulatory mechanisms that shape food choice, from theoretical, empirical, and applied perspectives. We are particularly interested in work that moves beyond documenting associations to specifying mechanisms, testing them across contexts, and translating them into targeted interventions. By bringing together research at the intersection of eating behavior, affective science, and self-regulation, this collection aims to build more precise, mechanism-based models of dietary decision-making — and to inform interventions that are more effective, more personalized, and more resilient in everyday life.Areas of interest include, but are not limited to:- Emotion regulation strategies (e.g., reappraisal, suppression) and their links to healthy vs. unhealthy food choices- Stress and anxiety reactivity as triggers of emotional eating and loss of dietary self-control- Impulsivity, delay discounting, and inhibitory control in food-related decision-making- Motivational processes (e.g., approach/avoidance, autonomous vs. controlled motivation) underlying dietary self-regulation- Self-control capacity, ego depletion, and the intention–behavior gap in eating- Real-time and ecological approaches (e.g., ecological momentary assessment, laboratory decision tasks) that capture food decisions as they happen- Emotional and self-regulatory pathways to obesity, disordered eating, and diet-related chronic disease- Mechanism-based and emotion-focused interventions to strengthen dietary self-regulation- Development and psychometric validation of instruments measuring these constructs across populations and cultures- Hormonal and reproductive-cycle influences (e.g., menstrual cycle phases, menopause) on food-related decision-making and self-regulatory capacityThis Research Topic welcomes Original Research, Systematic Reviews, Meta-Analyses, Longitudinal Studies, Cross-Cultural Research, Theoretical/Conceptual contributions, Psychometric Studies, and evidence-based Intervention Studies that examine the emotional and self-regulatory mechanisms shaping eating behavior across diverse populations. Topic editors: Sofia Abrevaya, David Javier-Aliaga Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/86134/the-self-regulation-of-eating-how-psychological-emotional-and-biological-factors-shape-lifestyles-food-related-decisions-and-obesity