DOI: 10.5176/2251-1865_CBP13.50
Authors: Kullaya Pisitsungkagarn
Abstract:
Thailand has recently experienced a nutrition transition, and food is now readily available to the majority of the Thai population. This transition has led to changes in eating behavior, with positive (e.g., improved nutrition) and negative (e.g., obesity and emotional eating) health outcomes. This paper aims to investigate emotional eating in the Thai adolescents, in order to guide future interventions. Two key objectives were: 1) to identify a group of adolescents who are particularly vulnerable of emotional eating, and 2) to describe the characteristics of emotional eating within this vulnerable group. In Study 1, 846 Thai adolescents completed the Emotional Eating Subscale of the Dutch Eating Behaviours Questionnaire (DEBQ). Findings suggested that, when compared with male adolescents and non-dieting female adolescents, dieting female adolescents were significantly more vulnerable of emotional eating. In Study 2, 23 Thai female adolescents who were attempting to lose weight and who engaged in emotional eating kept a daily log of their eating behavior and emotional experiences. These participants attended a weekly interview for six weeks. Emotional eating in this group was manifested in ways consistent with reports from Western populations. Findings from these two studies help identify populations that may benefit from targeted intervention for emotional eating and suggest that treatment strategies from Western cultures may help to reduce emotional eating and its adverse health effects in Thai culture.
Keywords: Emotional Eating, Female Adolescents, Dieting
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