Ga-Eun Jung, Ga-Ram Kwon, Young-A Lee, Associations among executive function, social functioning, emotional states, and eating behavior patterns in young adults, Journal of Psychiatric Research, Volume 199, 2026, Pages 13-27, ISSN 0022-3956, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychires.2026.04.011.
The researchers explored how thinking skills, emotions, and social experiences relate to eating behaviors in otherwise healthy young adults. The study found that patterns linked to food addiction were most strongly associated with reward sensitivity and hypervigilance, meaning individuals were more reactive to food cues and more alert to their environment. Many eating behaviors also showed strong connections to executive function, especially cognitive flexibility, while emotional distress and social stress were linked to multiple eating-related patterns. The authors note that these findings are associative and exploratory, but they suggest that food addiction may be influenced not just by food itself, but by how the brain processes reward, stress, and decision-making. Overall, the study supports the idea that addictive-like eating patterns are connected to a broader system involving emotion, cognition, and social experience, even in people without diagnosed eating disorders.