The psychological aspects of eating behavior, psychological well-being and weight status in the medical and healthcare students

Abstract

Aim: To assess the psychological aspect of eating behaviour and psychological well being, including depression, anxiety and stress in the medical and healthcare students in Hong Kong Methods: This is a cross-sectional study which invited medical students, nursing student and pharmacy students to complete an online questionnaire. A Weight-related Eating Questionnaire (WREQ) was used to measure external eating (hunger and responsiveness to food cues), emotional eating and dietary restraint. The psychological well being, including depression, anxiety and stress was assessed by using the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS21). The data collection is still underway. This abstract reports the preliminary analysis of 167 respondents (65.5% female, mean age 20.2 ±smn;1.4 years, mean BMI 20.8±smn;2.3) Results: Among the 167 respondents, 16% were underweight, 70% with normal body weight and 13.8% were overweight or obese. 32% reported consuming more in response to external eating cues and 19.8 % reported emotional eating. 35.3% had moderate to severe depression, 28.1% had moderate to severe levels of stress and 54.5% had severe to moderate levels of anxiety. A higher proportion of overweight or obese students reported consuming more in response to external eating cues (P=0.047). Students with depression problem reported a higher tendency of emotional eating (P=0.001) and external eating (P=0.012). Similarly, students with anxiety problem report a higher tendency of emotional eating (P<0.001) and external eating (P<0.001). Conclusion: Medical and healthcare students reported a poor psychological well-being and their psychological well-being are related with the psychological aspects of eating behavior, including emotional eating and external eating.