Increased emotional eating during COVID-19 associated with lockdown, psychological and social distress

The Relationship between Psychological Distress during the Second Wave Lockdown of COVID-19 and Emotional Eating in Italian Young Adults: The Mediating Role of Emotional Dysregulation

“…This scenario reflects emotional eating. Emotional eating is defined as “the tendency to eat in response to negative emotions” [ 12 ]. Emotional eating could be problematic for both physical and psychological health since it has been associated with consuming unhealthy food and, therefore, weight gain, as well as with poorer psychological well-being, depression [ 13 ], and eating disorders [ 14 , 15 ].…”

Eating Motives and Other Factors Predicting Emotional Overeating during COVID-19 in a Sample of Polish Adults

“…The results of the present study confirm that emotion-related predictors (eating motives in the form of affect regulation and COVID-19-related stress) are associated with higher emotional overeating, over and above the variance explained by demographic variables (gender and BMI) and other eating motives (visual- and attitude-related predictors: liking, pleasure, visual appeal; body- and health-related predictors: need and hunger, health, weight control). Although, based on our study, we cannot speak to a cause-and-effect relationship, it is possible that COVID-19-related stress leads to reducing the resources used to cope with emotions and stress in everyday life, which in turn leads to overeating [ 11 , 12 , 13 , 37 ]. This may be additionally reinforced by the persistence of the tendency to regulate emotions with the use of food (eating motive in the form of affect regulation).…”

“…To sum up, during the COVID-19 pandemic, eating can, on the one hand, help to cope with the current difficult situation and the negative emotions associated with it; on the other hand, frequent use of this tendency can lead to rigid regulation of affect and use of this mechanism as the dominant mechanism [ 11 , 12 , 13 , 37 , 56 ]. Therefore, limited social contact, related disruptions in daily activities and stress resulting from COVID-19 should generate appropriate interventions, not necessarily focusing only on emotional eating, but also on the resources of the individual.…”

“…In turn, these predictors will be connected by a negative relationship with emotional overeating [ 10 , 12 , 35 , 36 ]. With reference to the last group—emotion-related variables—as mentioned earlier, COVID-19 can significantly disrupt people’s emotional functioning, and may lead to the experience of severe stress and an increase in eating motivated by the desire to regulate one’s emotional state, which, as is well known from previous studies, can be a very important factor in intensifying emotional overeating [ 3 , 5 , 8 , 9 , 11 , 13 , 14 , 37 ].…”

Perceived Weight Gain and Eating Disorder Symptoms among LGBTQ+ Adults during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Convergent Mixed-Method Study

“…[6][7][8][9][10][11][12] Preliminary studies examining disordered eating behaviors (DEB) during the COVID-19 pandemic cautioned how lockdown may exacerbate problematic eating behaviors, [13][14][15] and that ED may shape COVID-19 risk. 16 In an Italian community sample collected at two different phases of Italy's pandemic lockdown, Cecchetto et al 17 found that depression and anxiety were associated with emotional eating, and that stress was associated with binge eating. Similarly, in a French college sample, Flaudias et al 13 found that lockdown-related stress and elevated exposure to COVID-19-related media was predictive of dietary restrictions and/or binge eating.…”