Comparison of emotional eating, emotion regulation difficulties and conscious awareness levels in adolescents with and without obesity

Objective: Our study aimed to compare emotional eating, emotional regulation difficulties, and mindfulness levels in adolescents with and without obesity, and to investigate the relationship between mindfulness, emotional eating, and emotional regulation in obese adolescents. Method: 80 adolescents between the ages of 14-17 who were diagnosed with obesity were included in the study as a case group and 80 adolescents with normal weight, matched according to age and gender, as a control group. Among the cases included in the study; They were asked to fill out the Emotional Eating Scale - Child and Adolescent Form (EES-C), Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS), Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS), and Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire (DEBQ). Results: In our study, a significant difference was found in emotional eating, emotion regulation and mindfulness levels between obese and non-obese groups. Hierarchical logistic regression analysis was performed to determine the variables that are important in determining the obesity group, and it was determined that low MAAS Total Score, DERS -total score and DEBQ-restrained eating score variables significantly predicted the obesity group.Linear regression analysis was performed to determine the variables that have an impact on emotional eating in adolescents diagnosed with obesity; It was determined that the DERS -Total score significantly predicted emotional eating scores. Conclusion: We think that our current study will contribute to the literature, as it is, to our knowledge, the first study examining the relationship between mindfulness, emotional eating and emotion regulation in obese adolescents. It was concluded that the adolescents in the case group had more emotional eating behavior, had more difficulties in regulating emotions, and had lower levels of conscious awareness. In our research, it was determined that having difficulties in emotional regulation, restrictive eating behavior and low awareness increase the risk of obesity. Our findings, in line with the literature, show that a low level of mindfulness predicts emotion regulation difficulties, and it is predicted that mindfulness-based therapies can reduce emotional eating in obese adolescents by increasing emotion regulation skills, thus increasing diet compliance and being effective in weight control.