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.