The Inverse Association of Mediterranean Diet with Emotional Eating: A Cross-Sectional Study in Greek Adults

Abstract

Background/objectives: Emotional eating (EE) is the tendency to overeat in response to negative emotions. Food consumption is influenced by both personal and environmental factors. Emotions are personal factors that can affect food consumption. The objective of this study is to assess the association between Mediterranean diet (MD), a dietary pattern promoting mental health, and emotional eating via the Three-Factor Eating Questionnaire (TEFQ).

Methods: This is a cross-sectional survey including 328 adults aged 18-75 years. Appropriate questionnaires were applied for evaluating adherence to the Mediterranean diet (MedDiet score) and types of feeding and the expression of emotional food consumption (TFEQ).

Results: A mean MedDiet score equal to 30.97 ± 4.93 and a total TFEQ score equal to 45.40 ± 6.31 were noted. MedDiet score was significantly inversely associated with TFEQ total score (r = 0.23, p = 0.026) as well as with TFEQ emotional score (r = 0.37, p < 0.0001). Fruits and vegetables consumption was positively associated with TFEQ emotional score (r = 0.25, p = 0.014, and r = 0.20, p = 0.049, respectively).

Conclusions: In order to produce data showing improvements in eating behavior, our findings have highlighted the significance of conducting large, prospective, well-designed, randomized, interventional clinical studies to confirm the inverse association of MD with EE. The interpretation of the results is complicated due to cross-sectional design, the social desirability bias and the self-report nature of both dietary and emotional assessments.

Keywords: MedDiet score; Mediterranean diet; dietary pattern; eating behavior; emotional eating; emotional food consumption; three-factor eating questionnaire.