Associations of momentary food availability and appetitive drive with adolescents' food intake and dysregulated eating in a community sample of adolescents: The moderating role of trait hedonic hunger.

Using ecological momentary assessment (EMA), we tested whether momentary palatable food availability and appetitive drive predict adolescents' palatable food/drink intake and dysregulated eating and whether trait hedonic hunger moderates these momentary links. Adolescents aged 13-17 (N = 74) completed a 10-day smartphone EMA protocol with three to seven semi-randomly delivered surveys daily and event reports of eating episodes. Outcomes included intake of sweet foods, salty/fried foods, and sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs), plus momentary loss of control eating (LOCE) and overeating symptoms. Generalized linear mixed models separated within-person (momentary elevations) from between-person (average differences) effects and tested trait hedonic hunger (Power of Food Scale) as a moderator. Higher trait hedonic hunger was associated with greater odds of intake of sweet foods and SSBs and with greater LOCE and overeating. Within-person increases in food availability prospectively predicted higher odds of sweet food intake at the subsequent eating episode, and between-person food availability was associated with higher odds of salty/fried foods intake. Appetitive drive was inversely associated with sweet food intake. Trait hedonic hunger strengthened the positive association between appetitive drive and subsequent salty/fried food intake and LOCE. Findings emphasize the need to consider both momentary contexts and trait-level factors when designing strategies to support healthy eating among adolescents.