The Relationship between Food Intake and Personality Types in Female Japanese Students

Abstract

We investigated the epidemiological relationship between the personality styles of Japanese women and their eating habits and behaviors. We conducted a cross-sectional study on 157 female students in the nutritionist vocational school A in Tokyo, Japan. Participants answered questions relating to personality style and daily food intake and underwent physical and biochemical investigations. Multivariate analysis of lifestyle-related factors revealed a significant positive correlation between the personality type that tended to lose patience and overeating, and between the ‘internal-type’ score on the multiple health locus of control (MHLC) scale and energy intake. The ‘chance-type’ score was negatively correlated with exercise habit, and the ‘power-type’ score was positively correlated with the overeating score and the frequency of eating breakfast. The personality predisposition of the internal-type is to “control my own health by myself”, the opposite to that of the power-type, which is to “leave my health to specialists”. The internal-type and the power-type showed opposing trends in all lifestyle-related indices except for the frequency to eat breakfast. This study suggests that these personality predispositions are closely correlated with eating habits. Dietary advice should be given while paying sufficient attention to the personality predisposition of individual subjects.