Phase-Transitions in Disgust During Self-Initiated Eating Among Adolescents With Anorexia Nervosa and Related Low-Weight Eating Disorders and Matched Controls.

Background: Understanding the emotional context of feeding behavior may help identify causal mechanisms of food avoidance among individuals with anorexia nervosa. Although predominant food avoidance models assume fear of fat drives feeding behavior, disgust may be more theoretically and proximally relevant to moment-to-moment experiences of feeding. This study, therefore, aimed to examine affect and food avoidance using automated affect analysis from facial response by measuring time-specific transitions in disgust during a laboratory eating paradigm.