The Relationship between Sense of Coherence, Stress, Body Image Satisfaction and Eating Behavior in Japanese and Austrian Students

Abstract

Background: Restrained, emotional, and external eating are related to obesity and eating disorders. A salutogenic model has confirmed sense of coherence (SOC) as a health resource that moderates stress and helps limit the occurrence of overweightness and eating disorders. This study aimed to examine the relationship between SOC, social support, stress, body image satisfaction (BIS) and eating behaviors in different cultural environments. Methods: A total of 371 Austrian (161 men, 210 women) and 398 Japanese (226 men, 172 women) university students participated. The SOC-13 scale, Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support, Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire, BMI-Based Silhouette Matching Test and an analogue single-stress item were used as measurements. Results: SOC negatively affected all three types of eating in Austrian students (men: β = −0.227 to −0.215; women: β = −0.262 to −0.214). In Japanese students, SOC negatively affected external eating in both sexes (men: β = −0.150; women: β = −0.198) and emotional eating (β = −0.187) in men. BIS indicated that the desire to become slim predicted restrained eating, women’s emotional eating, and men’s and Austrian women’s external eating. Stress was only predictive of emotional eating in Japanese men. Conclusions: This study found that SOC, BIS and stress might be valuable factors regulating eating behavior in a cultural context. However, the relationship between SOC, BIS, stress and eating behavior differs between cultures.

Salutogenesis, nutritional status and eating behaviour: a systematic review

“…Hence, people with a strong SOC have an orientation towards healthier lifestyle behaviours, which includes a healthier diet, corroborating the findings of studies that evaluated the relationship between SOC and eating behaviour (5,15,25,(28)(29)(30)(31)(33)(34)(35)(36)(37)(38)(39)(40)(41) .…”

“…Thus, when the food was evaluated according to emotional, external and food restriction scales, a lesser SOC and more restricted food were predictors of emotional tension. Therefore, it is possible to claim that people who cannot cope with stress tend to have an emotional eating behaviour, eating quickly and with food restriction, that will generate excessive consumption (29)(30)(31) . People who resist the negative effects of stress tend to eat healthy diets.…”

Cognitive Mechanisms in Entrepreneurship Competence: Its Implication for Open Innovation

“…In the face of setbacks and difficulties, individuals will constantly adjust themselves to achieve their goals as much as possible; they put forward the concept of temperament optimism. Other scholars [31] argue that optimism is not a universal personality trait. It is a different tendency of individuals in attribution analysis after events.…”

Gender Differences in Healthy Lifestyle, Body Consciousness, and the Use of Social Networks among Medical Students

“…In addition, because healthcare students will work with teenagers and young adults, it is useful consider factors such as satisfaction with physical appearance, ideal body image, and the impact of media and social media on health status. The relevant relationship between the perception of one’s physical appearance and depression [ 70 ], stress [ 71 ], intimate relationship [ 72 ], eating disorders [ 73 ], food addiction, body mass index [ 46 , 74 ], mental health [ 75 ], orthorexia nervosa [ 76 ], perfectionism dimensions and physical appearance [ 77 ], body image distortions [ 78 ], and loneliness [ 72 ] are important for both the personal and professional lives of healthcare students.…”