Relationship Between Stress Level, Physical Activity, and Consumption Pattern of Magnesium With Emotional Eating in Overweight Adolescents

Abstract

— Emotional eating is one’s behavior in excessive consumption of food, which is caused by negative emotions such as stress, anxiety, and depression and which can cause weight gain. Emotional eating can be affected by various factors including stress level, physical activity, and nutrients such as magnesium. This study aims at determining the relationship between stress level, physical activity, and consumption pattern of magnesium with emotional eating in overweight adolescents. This study used observational analytic method cross sectional design. Its population was overweight and obese adolescents aged 15-18 years old in Surakarta. The subjects were 122 adolescents taken by purposive sampling. Emotional eating data were collected through Eating and Appraisal Due to Emotions and Stress (EADES) questionnaire, consumption pattern of magnesium data were gathered by using non-quantitative Food Frequency Questionnaire (FFQ), and physical activity data were obtained through International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ). Relationship analysis used chi square test with IBM SPSS Statistics 20. The results of show that the stress level had a relationship with the emotional eating in overweight adolescents (p = 0.006), the physical activity had a relationship with the emotional eating in overweight adolescents (p = 0.000), and the consumption pattern of magnesium had a relationship with the emotional eating in overweight adolescents (p = 0.034). Thus, stress level, physical activity, and consumption pattern of magnesium had a relationship with emotional eating in overweight adolescents. Physical activity and consumption pattern of magnesium were the most influential variables on emotional eating in overweight adolescents by 17.8%.