The relationship of trait negative urgency and negative affect to disordered eating in men and women

•We investigated sadness, anger, guilt, fear, and urgency with disordered eating.•Unique aspects of guilt were positively related with eating pathology.•Unique aspects of fear were negatively related to eating pathology.•Urgency was not a moderator between negative moods and disordered eating.•Urgency was related to global EDE-Q scores only for women.

Many theoretical models of disordered eating have not been evaluated utilizing male samples. Individual differences in negative urgency (i.e., the tendency to act impulsively during distress), are associated with eating pathology, but very few studies have examined the interaction of negative mood states and negative urgency on disordered eating. The current study tested the hypothesis that the influence of negative moods on disordered eating would be strengthened by individual differences in negative urgency, and examined the potential moderating effects of this relationship by sex. Structural equation modeling was used in a sample of 884 undergraduate men and women to test whether or not the relationships between urgency and affect were invariant across sex. Negative urgency did not strengthen the association between mood states and disordered eating. Additionally, associations between negative urgency, affect, and eating pathology differed by gender. Individual differences in both negative urgency and mood states made unique contributions to binge eating, but negative urgency contributed significant variance to other disordered eating symptoms only for women.