Evaluating the Association of Sociodemographic, Anthropometric, and Lifestyle Factors with Emotional Eating: A Cross-Sectional Study.

Abstract

Background/objectives: Emotional eating is an eating behavior that is influenced by behaviors, stress, emotions, and individual feelings in relation to eating. For many decades, studies have shown that mental health is the complex outcome of numerous biological, psychological, and social factors, involving contextual factors beyond the individual.

Aim: The objective of this study is to evaluate the interconnections between emotional eating and sociodemographic and anthropometric characteristics and lifestyle factors.

Methods: This is a cross-sectional study conducted on 328 adults aged between 18 and 75 years. Relevant questionnaires were utilized to evaluate sociodemographic and anthropometric parameters and types of feeding and the expression of emotional food consumption (The Three-Factor Eating Questionnaire).

Results: According to the analyses above, negative correlations between the emotional eating score and waist circumference and Body Mass Index (BMI) were noted. Furthermore, men were more likely to eat emotionally than women. According to a univariable regression analysis, it was also shown that there was an inverse relationship with age up to 35.92 years and a positive relationship for age > 35.92 years. In addition, an inverse relationship with a decrease in the emotional eating score was found with a BMI up to <49.32 kg/m².

Conclusion: Our findings have emphasized the importance of performing large, prospective, well-designed, randomized, interventional, clinical trials to generate data indicating improvements in eating behavior. Moreover, in future studies the researchers must indicate which assessment tool for emotional eating they will use.