Effect of emotional state on nutrition behavior in working and non-working women living in Manavgat district

This study has been carried out to evaluate the relationship between emotional status such as depression, stress, anxiety and nutritional behaviors by comparing tendency to food preferences and anthropometric measurements of working and non-working women living in Manavgat district. The study was conducted with a total of 210 women, of whom 105 were working and 105 were not working, between the ages of 25-45 (inclusive) who agreed to participate voluntarily within 6 months after receiving approval from the Ethics Committee on 31/03/2017. Participant's demographic characteristics, anthropometric measurements, food consumption over the last 24 hours, depression, anxiety and stress levels (Depression-Anxiety-Stress Scale (DASS)) and nutritional behavior (Revised Three-Factor Eating Questionnaire (TFEQ-R18)) were evaluated. There was no statistically significant difference in terms of age, marital status and educational status between working and non - working women (p>0.05), while the level of family income of working women was found to be significantly higher (p<0.05). According to working status, there was a statistically significant difference between the number of snacks, status of skipped meals, skipped meals, reasons for skipping meals and frequency of eating out (p<0.05). The average duration of activity in one week was 210.53 ± 61.52 min for working women and 186.84 ± 40.07 min for non-working women (p˂0.05). It was determined that 9.5% of working women were found to be sad or unhappy at work, 10.5% were anxious, 29.5% were stressed and 50.5% were happy. 21.9% of the women were exposed to abuse at work and 95.7% of them were exposed to verbal harassment while 4.3% of them were exposed to psychological harassment. There was no statistically significant difference between working and non-working women according to BMI (p>0.05). The average energy intake of the individuals were found to be 2029.58 ± 545.03 kcal in working women, while 2243.66 ± 440.16 kcal were found in non-working women (p˂0.05). In both working and non-working women, it was found that the percentage of energy from total fat was higher than the recommended level and less than the percentage coming from the carbohydrate. When compared with the Dietary Guidelines for Turkey, participants' daily dietary intake of vitamins and minerals; all individuals were found to have received less than the recommended levels of thiamine, calcium and iron. The difference between the stress, anxiety and cognitive restriction scores of the working and non-working women was statistically significant (p<0.05). A statistically significant difference was found in terms of uncontrolled eating and cognitive restraint scores with BMI in both working and non-working women (p<0.05). There was statistically significant difference between the number of diet and cognitive restraint scores among working women and the number of diets between depression, uncontrolled eating and cognitive restraint scores on non-working women (p<0.05). There was no statistically significant correlation between stress, anxiety and depression and nutritional status (p˃0.05). It was determined that uncontrolled eating, cognitive restraint and emotional eating were correlated with energy, protein, carbohydrate, fat, thiamine, folic acid and vitamin B12 (p<0.05), while it differs from working to non-working women. While stress, anxiety and depression scores of the working women who were worried about household work were significantly higher, only uncontrolled eating scores of the unemployed women were significantly higher (p<0.05). The avarage anxiety scores of women who were abused and not at work were 6.91±5.14 and 4.63±4.62 respectively (p<0.05). When the subscales of the scales were compared between themselves, it was determined that uncontrolled eating was correlated with stress, anxiety and depression; cognitive restraint with anxiety and depression and emotional eating with stress and depression (p<0.05). As a result, negative emotional states of working and non-working women have been found to have adverse effects on nutritional behavior.