Negative affect influences the computations underlying food choice in bulimia nervosa.

Negative affect amplifies the bias toward tastiness over healthiness in food choices, especially in individuals with bulimia nervosa, increasing binge episode risk.

• Why it matters: Understanding how negative emotions influence food decision-making can clarify mechanisms behind binge eating and inform targeted interventions for bulimia nervosa.
• What they did: Researchers used a randomized crossover design with 25 women with BN and 21 controls, applying affect induction and a food choice task analyzed via a time-varying diffusion decision model.
• The result: Negative affect heightened the bias toward considering tastiness first, particularly in BN, predicting more frequent binge episodes over three months and revealing emotion-driven decision processes.