Exploring the relationship between emotional eating, restrictive eating and external eating behaviors and test anxiety in senior high school students

Aim: This study was carried out to examine the relationship between eating behaviours and test anxiety of high school seniors' students at February-March 2022. Material and method: The study was conducted with 420 volunteer high school senior students studying at 21 public schools at the center of Kırşehir. Personal Information Form was used to identify of the participants socio- demographic characteristics, anthropometric measurements, body image and towards the exam' attitudes. Dutch Eating Habits Questionnaire (DEBQ) was used to determine emotional, restrictive, and external eating behaviours and Westside Test Anxiety Scale (WTAS) was employed to determine test anxiety level. Results: 61.9% of the participants were female and 38.1% were male. According to the body mass index (BMI) of the individuals, 31.7% of the individuals are underweight, 53.8% are normal weight, and 14.5% are slightly obese. DEBQ total mean score was found 83.37±22.71; WTAS total score was found 29.79±10.03 on average. DEBQ total andall sub-dimensional eating scores were found to be higher in women (p<0.05). Participants with high body perception had higher DEBQ total and restrictive score (p<0.05). Thetotal DEBQ, restrictive and emotional scores were found to be higher in those with normal weight and slightly obese than the lean participants (p<0.05). It was determined that the WTAS scores of male participants were higher than female participants (p<0.05). The WTAS scores of the participants whose mothers had high school degree were higher than the participants whose mothers had primary school- secondary degree (p<0.05). There was a negative relationship between WTAS and DEBQ total score (r:-0.157; p<0.01), emotional score (r:-0.151; p<0.01), external score (r:-0.150; p <0.01). Conclusion: It was revealed that the eating behavior of the participants was affected by test anxiety, BMI, body image and various sociodemographic characteristics.