The relevance of interoception for eating behavior and eating disorders

Abstract

The importance of interoception for adaptive and maladaptive behavior, as well as for psychopathology, has gained growing interest, and dysfunctional interoception has been recognized as representing a core impairment across psychosomatic and psychiatric disorders. Eating is intrinsically guided by interoceptive signals and is directly associated with homeostatic psychophysiological needs, well-being, and survival. This chapter provides conceptually and empirically drawn conclusions focusing on the relevance of distinguishable dimensions of interoception for shaping eating behavior and body weight, and for eating disorders. Going beyond eating behavior per se, anorexia and bulimia nervosa are conceptualized as characterized by profound impairment of the self, with dysfunctional interoception at its core. Predictive coding models are addressed to integrate conclusions and empirical findings tentatively.