Disordered Eating Attitudes Scale Is Associated with Socio-Demographics, Stress, and Snack Intake in Overweight and Obese College Students

OBJECTIVES: College students are at risk for disordered eating attitudes (DEA) due the high demands of higher education. This could lead to a greater snack intake that could replace meals. DEA could also be influenced by demographics. Our objective was to evaluate the association between DEA, snack patterns, stress level, and demographics. METHODS: This is a secondary analysis of the baseline data from the Snackability Trial, a trial to test the effects of using the Snackability app to choose healthier snacks compared to controls. Students were recruited online from June 2020 to March 2021. Participants completed questionnaires at baseline on socio-demographics, snack intake, stress level, and DEA. Descriptive statistics included frequency and mean/standard deviation of all variables. ANOVA and Pearson correlations were used to evaluate the associations between variables. RESULTS: A total of 287 completed the baseline questionnaires. The average age was 21.2 ± 1.83 years, most were female (83.5%), white (40.0%), with a household income of < $50,000 (54.1%) and 45.1% were Hispanic/Latino. Average DEA score was 89.4 ± 19.2 (medium level), snacks were consumed 2.38 ± 1.08 times per day, and stress score was 6.76 ± 1.88 (medium-high). Age, stress, and snack intake were significantly correlated with the Restrictive and Compensatory subscale (p < 0.05). Stress was also significantly correlated with the total DEA score (p < 0.001), Relationship with food subscale (p < 0.001), and Concern about food and weight gain subscale (p = 0.002). Mean total DEA scores were similar by gender, race, ethnicity, or household income. CONCLUSIONS: Age, stress, and snack intake were significantly correlated with total DEA score or with one of the subscales of DEA. These results can be used to develop interventions for college students to promote healthy snacks and manage stress. FUNDING SOURCES: Internal funds from FIU.