Association Between Emotional Eating, Sociodemographic Characteristics, Physical Activity, Sleep Duration, and Mental and Physical Health in Young Adults

BACKGROUND: Emotional eating (EmE) is one of the most common eating behaviors maladaptive among young adults, however, in the Peruvian context, it remains unexplored. OBJECTIVE: The aim of the study was to determine the association between negative EmE, sociodemographic characteristics, physical activity, sleep duration, and mental and physical health in young adults. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted in 400 young Peruvian adults living in three regions of Peru (coast, jungle, and highlands). An online survey was used to collect information on sociodemographic characteristics, physical activity, sleep duration, depressive symptoms, anxiety, hypertension, and negative EmE. In addition, self-reported anthropometric data were collected to calculate body mass index (BMI). RESULTS: Approximately 55.8% of women presented negative EmE. Logistic regression analysis revealed that participants aged 30–39 years were less likely to have negative EmE in both female and male gender, OR; 0.24, 95% CI; 0.08–0.66, p<0.01 and OR; 0.40, 95% CI; 0.16–0.97, p<0.05, respectively. Perform physical activity 3 to 4 times 5.22 (95% CI: 1.31–20.78), 1 to 2 times a week 5.77 (95% CI: 1.91–17.44), and never 15.18 (95% CI: 3.90–59.00) were associated with negative EmE. Moreover, sleeping less than 7 hours per day (OR; 2.26, 95% CI; 1.04–4.90), depressive symptoms (OR = 6.29, 95% CI: 1.27–31.19), anxiety (OR = 14.13, 95% CI: 2.46–80. 97, p<0.01), hypertension (OR = 7.58, 95% CI: 1.24–46.17), and BMI ≥25 (overweight/obese) (OR = 1.51, 95% CI: 1.66–3.41) were associated with negative EmE. CONCLUSION: The findings show that there is an association between negative EmE, sociodemographic characteristics, physical activity, sleep duration, and mental and physical health in young adults.