Relationships among perceived stress, emotional eating, and dietary intake in college students: Eating self-regulation as a mediator

This study aimed to examine the relationships among perceived stress, eating self-regulation, emotional eating, and dietary intake among undergraduate college students. This cross-sectional study was conducted with 523 students recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk. All participants completed an online survey that assessed perceived stress, eating self-regulation, emotional eating, dietary intake, and demographics. The study sample was 47% female, 30% Hispanic, 8% Black, and 33% Asian. The overweight and obesity rate was 33%. Nearly 83% reported having moderate to high levels of stress, and over 80% had low to medium levels of eating self-regulation skills. On average, students consumed fruits and vegetables 2.42 times per day and sweets and soft drinks about once every other day. Perceived stress was positively correlated with emotional eating ( β = 0.12, p = .005), and negatively correlated with eating self-regulation ( β = −0.40, p < .001). Eating self-regulation partially mediated the relationship between perceived stress and emotional eating ( β = 0.11, p < .001). Emotional eating was positively related to intake of sweets and soft drinks. Eating self-regulation was negatively related to sweet intake ( β = −0.19, p < .001). Eating self-regulation and emotional eating fully mediated the relationship between perceived stress and sweet intake ( β = 0.09, p < .001). Although warranting further investigation, this study's results emphasize the significant protective role of eating self-regulation for controlling college students' intake of sweets and soft drinks, and the negative effects of perceived stress and emotional eating on their dietary intake. Future interventions could consider strategies focusing on stress management and eating self-regulation to improve dietary intake among this young population.