Cargando…
Emotional Eating among Ghanaian University Students: Associations with Physical and Mental Health Measures
Eating behaviors are a set of cognitive processes that influence dietary decision making and, thus, overall health. Some of the most studied eating behaviors are those characterized by the Three Factor Eating Questionnaire-18 (TFEQ). The TFEQ examines three eating behaviors: emotional eating (EE), u...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
---|---|
Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2023
|
Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10056396/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36986256 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nu15061526 |
_version_ | 1785016111494856704 |
---|---|
author | Amoako, Mary Amoah-Agyei, Felicity Du, Chen Fenton, Jenifer I. Tucker, Robin M. |
author_facet | Amoako, Mary Amoah-Agyei, Felicity Du, Chen Fenton, Jenifer I. Tucker, Robin M. |
author_sort | Amoako, Mary |
collection | PubMed |
description | Eating behaviors are a set of cognitive processes that influence dietary decision making and, thus, overall health. Some of the most studied eating behaviors are those characterized by the Three Factor Eating Questionnaire-18 (TFEQ). The TFEQ examines three eating behaviors: emotional eating (EE), uncontrolled eating (UE), and restrained eating (RE). While frequently used, there is little information characterizing these eating behaviors in the Ghanaian population. This cross-sectional study describes EE, UE, and RE behaviors in a university student population (n = 129) in Ghana. Of the three behaviors, EE was the only one associated with any of the health outcomes in this study: BMI for males (r = 0.388, p = 0.002) and anxiety (r = 0.471, p < 0.001, higher score is less desirable), and sleep quality (r = 0.464, p < 0.001, higher score is less desirable) for females. Overweight and obese females reported significantly higher EE scores compared to healthy weight females (35.7 ± 23.7 vs. 11.9 ± 15.6, p = 0.002). No such observation was observed among overweight and obese males (p > 0.05). EE, UE, and RE scores did not differ between males and females. While this study provides important information about the eating behaviors of Ghanaian university students and allows for comparison to students from other cultures, future work must develop culturally relevant tools for the Ghanaian population. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-10056396 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2023 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-100563962023-03-30 Emotional Eating among Ghanaian University Students: Associations with Physical and Mental Health Measures Amoako, Mary Amoah-Agyei, Felicity Du, Chen Fenton, Jenifer I. Tucker, Robin M. Nutrients Brief Report Eating behaviors are a set of cognitive processes that influence dietary decision making and, thus, overall health. Some of the most studied eating behaviors are those characterized by the Three Factor Eating Questionnaire-18 (TFEQ). The TFEQ examines three eating behaviors: emotional eating (EE), uncontrolled eating (UE), and restrained eating (RE). While frequently used, there is little information characterizing these eating behaviors in the Ghanaian population. This cross-sectional study describes EE, UE, and RE behaviors in a university student population (n = 129) in Ghana. Of the three behaviors, EE was the only one associated with any of the health outcomes in this study: BMI for males (r = 0.388, p = 0.002) and anxiety (r = 0.471, p < 0.001, higher score is less desirable), and sleep quality (r = 0.464, p < 0.001, higher score is less desirable) for females. Overweight and obese females reported significantly higher EE scores compared to healthy weight females (35.7 ± 23.7 vs. 11.9 ± 15.6, p = 0.002). No such observation was observed among overweight and obese males (p > 0.05). EE, UE, and RE scores did not differ between males and females. While this study provides important information about the eating behaviors of Ghanaian university students and allows for comparison to students from other cultures, future work must develop culturally relevant tools for the Ghanaian population. MDPI 2023-03-22 /pmc/articles/PMC10056396/ /pubmed/36986256 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nu15061526 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Brief Report Amoako, Mary Amoah-Agyei, Felicity Du, Chen Fenton, Jenifer I. Tucker, Robin M. Emotional Eating among Ghanaian University Students: Associations with Physical and Mental Health Measures |
title | Emotional Eating among Ghanaian University Students: Associations with Physical and Mental Health Measures |
title_full | Emotional Eating among Ghanaian University Students: Associations with Physical and Mental Health Measures |
title_fullStr | Emotional Eating among Ghanaian University Students: Associations with Physical and Mental Health Measures |
title_full_unstemmed | Emotional Eating among Ghanaian University Students: Associations with Physical and Mental Health Measures |
title_short | Emotional Eating among Ghanaian University Students: Associations with Physical and Mental Health Measures |
title_sort | emotional eating among ghanaian university students: associations with physical and mental health measures |
topic | Brief Report |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10056396/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36986256 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nu15061526 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT amoakomary emotionaleatingamongghanaianuniversitystudentsassociationswithphysicalandmentalhealthmeasures AT amoahagyeifelicity emotionaleatingamongghanaianuniversitystudentsassociationswithphysicalandmentalhealthmeasures AT duchen emotionaleatingamongghanaianuniversitystudentsassociationswithphysicalandmentalhealthmeasures AT fentonjeniferi emotionaleatingamongghanaianuniversitystudentsassociationswithphysicalandmentalhealthmeasures AT tuckerrobinm emotionaleatingamongghanaianuniversitystudentsassociationswithphysicalandmentalhealthmeasures |