Emotional eating behavior among University of Bahrain students: a cross-sectional study

Abstract

Given that the transition to university is a stressful experience, the present study aimed to assess how emotions affect eating behavior among students from the University of Bahrain. This was a cross-sectional study on 169 undergraduates, aged 17 to 36 years (average age, 20 ± 3 years), who completed an online survey that included questions based on the validated Emotional Appetite Questionnaire. The results showed that neither gender nor marital status had an effect on the reported eating behavior under different emotional states. Moreover, the majority of students reported eating less during negative emotional states (fear, sadness, anger, stress and depression). However, under loneliness and happiness, students tend to either sustain their food intake (45.6% and 55.0%, respectively) or to increase their food intake (32.0% and 39.6%, respectively). Results also revealed that the majority of students (71.6%) identified boredom as a trigger for emotional eating, but were less likely to experience guilt. Further, students tend to turn to high calorie, high fat foods during emotional eating episodes. Our findings underline the need to develop a multidisciplinary intervention strategy to improve the diet and eating habits of university students, with the goal of reducing the risk of obesity and related diseases. ARTICLE HISTORY

Prevalence and Predictors of Emotional Eating among Healthy Young Saudi Women during the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Only stressful situations were significantly associated with EE and led to more than 70% of the unhealthy food choices [ 67 ]. By contrast, another study [ 68 ] found no association between stress and EE among 169 undergraduate students, nor did it find any association between EE and fear, anger, sadness, or depression. These disparate results may be explained by the small sample sizes, the use of different instruments to measure EE and stress, and variations in the level of stress induced.…”

Factor Structure and Psychometric Properties of Emotional Eater Questionnaire (EEQ) in Spanish Colleges

“…It was necessary to examine factor structure, reliability, and concurrent and convergent validity of the EEQ in Spanish non-clinical samples, and, specifically, in university populations. It has been described poor eating habits among university students [18,59], and it has been found a significant relation between academic performance and EE at this stage [39]. Obesity prevention is a number one public health research priority, and it is clear that EE may play a significant role in the etiology of obesity in adolescents [65].…”

“…It seems particularly interesting to validate this instrument and to analyze its psychometric properties in a college population. Previous research suggests the need to improve the diet and eating habits of university students [18,59], and the relationship between academic performance and EE in adolescents [39].…”

Prevalence of negative emotional eating and its associated psychosocial factors among urban Chinese undergraduates in Hong Kong: a cross-sectional study

“…In the literature, there exists an extensive body of research examining maladaptive behaviours in college students such as substance abuse and excessive alcohol consumption [1][2][3][4]. Although comparatively less studied, emotional eating (EE), eating in response to a range of emotions [5], has been gaining interest among college health researchers in recent years [5][6][7][8][9][10]. Both positive and negative emotions can lead to greater food intake and overeating [11][12][13][14].…”