Emotional eating in patients attending a specialist obesity treatment service

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: The prevalence of emotional eating (EE) has increased in the general population over past decades. There is limited information on how common EE is among people seeking obesity treatment. We aimed to estimate the proportion of people with EE, and strength of associations between a predefined set of factors and EE in people referred for obesity treatment. METHODS: Cross-sectional study recruiting 387 adults from a hospital obesity service. "Emotional eating" was defined as Emotional Eating Scale (EES) score ≥25. Strength of associations were estimated by boot-strapped quantile regression analysis. Results are presented as quantile difference (QD) of EES scores at the 25th, 50th or ..