The relationship between eating behaviours, anger and codependency on overweight and obese individuals

Abstract Objective: The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between eating behaviours, anger, codependency and sociodemographic variables in overweight and obese individuals. Method: The sample of this research was composed of 213 overweight and obese individuals who applied to the Slimcity Healthy Nutrition Counseling Center for weight loss between the dates of 01.11.2017 and 01.02.2018. The participants completed research tools including; informed consent form, sociodemographic form, the Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire, the Spann-Fischer Codependency Scale and the Multidimensional Anger Scale. Result: Results showed that, there is a relationship between codependency and external and emotional eating behaviours. Relationship between codependency and anger-related thoughts, aggressive and anxious reactions subscales of anger-related reactions and intentional, passive aggressive and introverted anger of interpersonal anger were found. Also there are several relationships between eating behaviours and subscales of anger. It has been found that there is a difference between gender and emotional eating, restrictive eating, aggressive and calm reactions. However, there is no difference between gender and codependency. There were also relationship between BMI and external and emotional eating. Regression of anger subscales and codependency on eating behaviours was examined and it was found that self-oriented anger-related thoughts and calm behaviours predicted emotional eating behaviour. Conclusion: The importance of evaluating individuals who have weight problems with regard to physiological, psychological and relationships with other people as a whole was emphasized rather than approaching in terms of only physiological with calorie limitation. In the present study, it was deliberated that the findings of the study maybe beneficial the people who work with overweight and obese individuals and contribute to the literature. Keywords: overweight, obesity, eating behaviors, anger, codependency