| Diet is one of the primary interventions in weight management. However, specific individual risk factors for poor diet adherence have not been identified, resulting in unsuccessful weight management outcomes for many. One such risk factor may include low distress tolerance, which has been implicated in maladaptive behaviors including substance abuse, compulsive buying, and disordered eating. The purpose of this quantitative, non-experimental correlational design with regression analysis was to determine whether general versus specific measures of distress tolerance are significant predictors of diet adherence, thereby expanding theory and potentially identifying specific factors that can be targeted to improve success in weight management. The dependent variable was adherence to diet and independent variables were emotional distress tolerance (general measure), as well as the specific theoretically related but distinct measures of anxiety sensitivity, frustration intolerance, and discomfort intolerance. The study population was adults from San Diego who were attempting to lose weight through diet. Results showed that while discomfort intolerance (r = 0.19, p < .01) was significantly and positively correlated with diet adherence, only the domain-general measure of distress tolerance (b = -0.06, t(200) = -2.04, p < .05) was significantly predictive of diet adherence once discomfort intolerance was added to the model. Frustration intolerance and anxiety sensitivity were not found to have a strong predictive relationship with diet adherence. The recommendations for future research include extending distress tolerance research to focus on other independent variables, differentiating between emotional versus physical domains of distress tolerance in the context of dieting, using behaviorally-indexed measures of distress tolerance, examining maladaptive health behaviors, as well as conducting similar research on other populations. Implications for practice are premature in light of the inconclusive results of the current study and the need for further research. |
