A systematic review of the association between emotions and eating behaviour in normal and overweight adult populations

Abstract

likely to be consumed in response to positive affect. With regards to discrete emotions; stress, 10 depression, and sadness consistently elicited eating behaviours that fall outside of nutritional 11 recommendations (e.g., increased food intake, poor nutritional food choices). The role of 12 moderators including individual differences in dietary restraint and emotional eating, as well 13 as methodological considerations, such as means of eliciting and measuring emotions, may 14 account for equivocality with regards to some emotion and eating associations. The paper 15 concludes with recommendations for future research and implications for practice. 16 17

Understanding and effectively addressing disparities in obesity: A systematic review of the psychological determinants of emotional eating behaviours among Black women

“…The synthesis of the study findings advances our understanding of emotional eating. Our findings suggest that the negative emotions of perceived stress, perceived racial discrimination, and depression were significantly associated with emotional eating among studies where non‐Hispanic Black women comprised at least a quarter of the study population. Emotional eating was not significantly associated with BMI in any of the cross‐sectional studies.…”

“…They also showed that the perceived stressfulness of an event, as measured by the Weekly Stress Inventory, was independently related to binge eating symptom severity. Based on previous, equivocal findings for the relationship between stress and binge eating in minority groups, they had not expected this finding . Using the Beck Depression Inventory, Berenson et al chose to investigate whether individuals (young adults mean age 26.9), with higher depressive symptom scores, exhibited an eating pattern that favoured the high consumption of high‐fat and high‐sugar containing foods.…”

“…The findings were organized and presented taking into account the following factors: (a) the study design (ie, qualitative, cross‐section, and longitudinal); (b) the affective state that was measured (ie, depression, anxiety, and stress); and (c) the eating behaviour outcome. This organization was chosen following a previously published systematic review that evaluated the association between positive and negative affect emotions and eating behaviour in persons with normal and/or overweight adults . Our focus on racial/ethnic minority women with overweight and obesity is likely the reason that our review was not inclusive of any common articles to the review above.…”

Weight gain during incarceration: systematic review and meta‐analysis

“…In the study by Drach et al included in the present review (26), up to 40% of those incarcerated were taking medications known to affect weight. Incarceration represents a stressful life experience, and stress has been found to be associated with increased eating and the consumption of unhealthy foods (58). A report on women within the criminal justice system indicated that a pattern of comfort eating or eating to cope with boredom was reported by many women (44); stress was also associated with a higher weight gain in two studies included in this review (26,27).…”

Relationship between work-family conflict and unhealthy eating: Does eating style matter?

“…Such limitations prevent us from drawing conclusion about nutrient intake and ascertaining the extent to which the psycho-physiological responses to stress (i.e. higher conflicts) result in changes in food choices (Devonport, Nicholls & Fullerton, 2017;Epel, Lapidus, McEwen, & Brownell, 2001;Groesz et al, 2012) from more to less healthy food.…”