Comer emocional em universitários: relação com sintomas de ansiedade, depressão e estresse durante a pandemia da Covid-19

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has influenced several aspects related to life and daily, including eating behavior and mental health. Such aspects may have had a greater influence on the university population, who are prone to changes in eating behavior and mental health. The objective was to analyze the relationship between emotional eating and the signs and symptoms of anxiety, depression, and stress in university students during the COVID-19 health standards flexibilization period. This was a multicenter, cross-sectional epidemiological survey carried out in eight Federal Higher Education Institutions in Minas Gerais during a pandemic period. Students enrolled in undergraduate courses, volunteers, aged 18 years or older, and males and females were included. Participants answered a virtual questionnaire, with emotional eating analyzed by a subscale of the Three Factor Eating Questionnaire (TFEQ-21), and above the third quartile (≥66.7) was used to represent high scores. The Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21) was used to evaluate symptoms of anxiety, depression, and stress. Sex, age, family income, Body Mass Index (BMI), and undergraduate course area were also surveyed. Multiple logistic regression was used to assess factors associated with higher (≥Q3) emotional eating scores (p<0.05). The sample consisted of 8,650 undergraduates, 65.4% (n=5660) female, median age of 22 years (20 – 25), and 23.8% (n=2061) students in the health area. The median of emotional eating was 44.4 (22.2 – 66.7), and most students had symptoms of depression (73.2%; n=6330), stress (68.1%; n=5889), and anxiety (66.1%; n=5717). Having some symptoms (mild, moderate, severe, and extremely severe) of anxiety (OR=1.497; CI=1.298-1.726), depression (OR=1.731; CI=1.490-2.011), and stress (OR=1.742; CI=1.497-2.027), being female (OR=1.793; CI=1.601-2.008), overweight (OR=8.859; CI=6.665-11.775) and enrolled in undergraduate courses in the health area (OR=1.256; CI=1.116-1.414) were independently associated factors for higher scores of emotional eating. It was concluded that there were significant associations between emotional eating and signs of anxiety, depression, and stress and the emotional eating score was higher according to the severity of these symptoms.