The effect of work models in white collar employees' stress factors, lifestyle and emotional eating behavior

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, most of the companies had to start work from home in 2020. At the end of the two-year work from home period, many companies decide to change their work models to permanently home office or hybrid system. In this study, the effects of three working models (working from home, hybrid and from the office) on nutrition, lifestyle, mental health and emotional eating behaviors were investigated. A total of 406 people participated in the research, consisting of 204 women (50.2%) and 202 men (49.2%) who are working as white collar worker in İstanbul. This study took place between November 2022 and January 2023, demographic characteristics, work model, questions about eating habits, Depression Anxiety Stress Short Scale (DASS-21), Turkish International Physical Activity Questionnaire – Short Form (IPAQ-SF) and Turkish Emotional Eating Scale were used. According to the results, 27.6% of the participants work completely from home, 38.4% hybrid, 34% completely from the office. It has been determined that nutritional habits such as the number of main and snack meals consumed daily, the eating time periods during the day, the frequency of eating out per week, the change in snack consumption are associated with stress, anxiety, depression and emotional eating scores. 35.7% of home-office workers and 37.8% of hybrid workers experienced a weight gain of 6.63 ± 3.27 and 6.57 ± 4.12 kg, respectively, after starting working from home. There is no significant relationship was found between work patterns and stress, anxiety, depression, emotional eating, physical activity status and Daily sedentary time. According to the results, white collar workers may have risks such as inactivity, emotional eating behavior, stress, anxiety, depression, and weight gain in all working models. Further research is needed to identify in which working model these risks are higher. Actions to support individuals in cooperation with the public, employer and employee are needed to prevent possible risks.