Elsevier

Appetite

Volume 59, Issue 3, December 2012, Pages 762-769
Appetite

Research report
Stress, emotional eating behaviour and dietary patterns in children

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2012.08.010Get rights and content

Abstract

Psychological stress has been suggested to change dietary pattern towards more unhealthy choices and as such to contribute to overweight. Emotional eating behaviour could be an underlying mediating mechanism. The interrelationship between stress, emotional eating behaviour and dietary patterns has only rarely been examined in young children. Nevertheless, research in children is pivotal as the foundations of dietary habits are established starting from childhood and may track into adulthood. In 437 children (5–12 years) of the ChiBS study, stress was measured by questionnaires on stressful events, emotions (happy, angry, sad, anxious) and problems (emotional, peer, conduct and hyperactivity). Data were collected on children’s emotional eating behaviour and also on dietary patterns: frequency of fatty foods, sweet foods, snacks (fat and sweet), fruit and vegetables. Stressful events, negative emotions and problems were positively associated with emotional eating. Positive associations were observed between problems and both sweet and fatty foods consumption. Negative associations were observed between events and fruit and vegetables consumption. Overall, stress was associated with emotional eating and a more unhealthy dietary pattern and could thus contribute to the development of overweight, also in children. Nevertheless, emotional eating behaviour was not observed to mediate the stress–diet relation.

Highlights

► Children’s stress was linked with emotional eating and unhealthy dietary patterns. ► Differences in this relation may exist between different constructs of stress. ► Emotional eating behaviour did not mediate the stress–diet relation. ► Actions on stress and related eating behaviour are necessary in obesity prevention. ► This prevention should start in childhood.

Introduction

The importance of a healthy diet is widely accepted. More specifically, dietary guidelines are formulated in the prevention of obesity with a focus on high intakes of fruit and vegetables and low intake of energy dense foods like those high in fat and sugar (World Health Organization, 2003). The foundations of dietary habits are established from the ages of 3–4 years old (Singer, Moore, Garrahie, & Ellison, 1995) and may track into adolescence and adulthood (Mikkila et al., 2005, Wang et al., 2002).

An overall healthy diet consists of both a balanced food and nutrient composition as well as a balanced eating behaviour. A balanced eating behaviour comprises eating when feeling hungry, at regular moments to allow physiological growth and energy expenditure. However, a trend of eating in the absence of hunger and intermittent snacking is increasingly observed in the eating pattern in Western society. This unhealthy eating behaviour is related with unfavourable outcomes (unbalanced intake with too much fat and sugar leading to overweight in genetic at risk groups), making it pivotal to study its determinants.

Stress has been associated both with unhealthy emotional eating behaviour and an imbalanced dietary pattern (Adam and Epel, 2007, Dallman et al., 2003, Macht, 2008). However, several research gaps remain unresolved. For example it is relevant to test if stress is related with specific indices of food intake like higher consumption of fatty foods, sweet foods or both (e.g. snacks) and whether emotional eating can be seen as the mechanism underlying the assumed link between stress and an imbalanced dietary pattern. After all, emotional eating is hypothesized as a way of avoidant stress coping, eating induced stress reduction or because of the reward feelings associated with the food (Adam and Epel, 2007, Dallman et al., 2003).

Epidemiological research investigating the influence of stress on children’s diet is rather scarce and has mostly been performed in small samples, among adolescents, in laboratory conditions or focused on only one aspect of stress and mostly with indirect measures of imbalanced eating (e.g. increase in weight). As far as we know, only one study in children has included both a specific naturalistic stress measure and a direct measure of the individual’s dietary pattern (Jenkins, Rew, & Sternglanz, 2005).

Therefore, this study aims to fill this research gap by investigating the relationship between several stress measures, emotional eating behaviour and dietary patterns (sweet foods, fatty foods, snacks but also fruit and vegetables) in a sample of preadolescent children. Furthermore, the possible mediation effect of emotional eating behaviour will be tested. Especially in young children studying the role of stress on dietary intake is challenging as parents still highly control their child’s diet, while at the same time children already start to develop their own preferences.

Section snippets

Participants and general procedures

The subjects were 437 Belgian children (49.9% boys) between 5 and 12 years old participating in the ChiBS study (Children’s Body composition and Stress) in 2011. The ChiBS study examines stress and the relationship between stress and body composition development in primary school children. All children from the first to fourth year of primary schools in the Belgian city Aalter (in the northern, Dutch-speaking part of Belgium) were invited via the school to enter the study for the baseline stress

Descriptive data

As mentioned before, the principal component analysis resulted in a three factor structure for stressors. The first factor (called ‘Problems’) was positively affected by conduct problems, hyperactivity, peer problems and emotional problems and negatively by prosocial behaviour. The second factor (called ‘Negative emotions’) was positively affected by sadness, anger, anxiety and negatively by happiness. The third factor (called ‘Events’) was positively affected by daily uplifts, daily hassles

Discussion

This study has shown that stress in children (operationalized in three variables after PCA analyses on several stress-related questionnaires) was associated with emotional eating. Moreover, stress was also associated with an unhealthier dietary pattern (higher consumption frequency of fatty foods, sweet foods, and lower consumption frequency of fruit and vegetables). Nevertheless, emotional eating behaviour did not mediate the stress – dietary patterns relationship as emotional eating behaviour

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