Association of fatigue with emotional-eating behavior and the response to mental stress in food intake in a young adult population

Abstract

Fatigue is a common complaint among young adults. We investigated whether eating behaviors are associated with fatigue in this population. The participants consisted of 117 healthy students attending Osaka City University. They completed questionnaires assessing fatigue and eating behaviors. To identify the factors associated with the prevalence of fatigue, multivariate logistic regression analysis adjusted for gender was performed. The Emotional Eating subscale score of the Japanese version of Three-Factor Eating Questionnaire Revised 21-item and stress response in food intake (large decrease vs. no change) were positively associated with the prevalence of fatigue assessed by the Japanese version of the Chalder Fatigue Scale. The finding suggests that emotional eating and decrease in amount of food intake under mental stress were associated with fatigue in healthy young adults. Our findings may help to clarify the mechanisms underlying fatigue-eating coupling as well as the etiology of diseases related to abnormal eating behavior.

Keywords: Three-Factor Eating Questionnaire (TFEQ); emotional eating; fatigue; stress; young-adult population.