Relation between depression and dietary practice among middle-aged women: mediating effect of emotional eating

Abstract

Purpose: This study analyzes the association between depression, emotional eating, and dietary practices, and investigates the mediating effects of emotional eating between depression and dietary practice. Methods: A total of 345 women aged 40–59 years participated in the Seoul and Gyeonggido region. Assessments were achieved by self-reported questionnaires for emotional eating (Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire), Nutrition Quotients (NQ), and depression (Patient Health Questionnaire-9). Results: Analyzing the NQ scores by considering the depression group, revealed that compared to the normal group, balance, diversity, and eating behavior scores were lower in the depression group, whereas the moderation score was lower in the borderline depression group and depression group . The emotional eating scores were determined to be higher in the depression group than in the normal group. Partial correlation analysis between depression, emotional eating, and NQ revealed that depression is positively correlated with emotional eating and negatively correlated with all other factors of the nutrition quotient, balance, diversity, moderation, and eating behavior. Among the nutrition quotient factors considered, emotional eating was determined to be negatively correlated with both diversity and moderation. The bootstrapping method was applied to analyze the mediating effect of emotional eating for determining the association between depression and NQ. Results indicate that among the nutrition quotient factors evaluated using emotional eating as a medium, depression exerted a negative effect on moderation. Conclusion: Results of this study confirm that emotional eating, as a medium, affects the intake of unhealthy foods especially when depression is associated with dietary practices.