Revue internationale de santé mentale et de psychiatrie

What affects Emotional Eating? The Self-Control, Life Events and Coping among Adolescents

Ai Xie, Taisheng Cai

The current study investigated the relationship between self-control, coping style, life events and emotional eating, and examined the effects of these variables on emotional eating. Self-control, coping style, life events and emotional eating were measured in 932 high school students. Compared to non-emotional eating group, emotional eating group reported more use of emotion-oriented coping style and more life events. Both emotion-oriented coping style and life events were strongly related to emotional eating. To determine which of several variables best predicted emotional eating, we conducted step regression. The results indicated that life events was the primary predictor for emotional eating. As an unhealthy eating behavior, emotional eating may affect individual physical and mental health, but due to the particularity of Chinese society and the speciality of adolescence period, little attention has been paid to emotional eating among adolescents. To prevent emotional eating, it is necessary to train efficient coping strategy and screen for unhealthy eating behaviors when a adolescent reports adverse life events.