Food Addiction and the Physical and Mental Health Status of Adults with Overweight and Obesity

Overview

Journal PeerJ

Specialties Biology
Environmental Health
General Medicine

Date 2024 Jul 2

PMID 38952972

Authors

Magdalena Zielinska

Edyta Luszczki

Anna Szymanska

Katarzyna Deren

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Background: Overweight and obesity now affect more than a third of the world's population. They are strongly associated with somatic diseases, in particular increasing the risk of many metabolic and cardiovascular diseases, but also with mental disorders. In particular, there is a strong association between obesity and depression. As a result, more attention is paid to the neurobiological, behavioural, and psychological mechanisms involved in eating. One of these is food addiction (FA). Research comparing lifestyle elements, physical and mental health problems of excess body weight and individuals with FA is limited and has focused on younger people, mainly students. There is also a lack of studies that relate actual metabolic parameters to FA. To better understand the problem of FA also in older adults, it is important to understand the specific relationships between these variables.

Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted with 172 adults with overweight and obesity (82% female) aged 23-85 years. The mean age of all subjects was = 59.97 years ( = 11.93), the mean BMI was = 32.05 kg/m ( = 4.84), and the mean body fat was = 39.12% ( = 6.48). The following questionnaires were used: Food Frequency Questionnaire-6 (FFQ-6), Global Physical Activity Questionnaire (GPAQ), Three Factor Eating Questionnaire-R18 (TFEQ-R18), Yale Food Addiction Scale 2. 0 (YFAS 2.0), Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale (SDS). Body composition, anthropometry, fasting glucose, lipid profile, and blood pressure were measured.

Results: A total of 22.7% of participants with overweight and obesity had symptoms of depression according to the SDS, and 18.6% met the criteria for FA according to YFAS 2.0. FA was statistically significantly more common among people up to 50 years. BMI, body fat mass, diastolic blood pressure and sedentary behaviour were statistically significantly higher in people with FA symptoms. Those who were sedentary for 301-450 min per day were significantly more likely to have depressive symptoms, and those who were sedentary for more than 450 min per day were significantly more likely to have FA symptoms.

Conclusions: Our findings complement the current literature on FA, particularly in older adults and metabolic parameters, and suggest further research directions. Although our cross-sectional study design does not allow causal interpretations, increasing physical activity appears to be particularly important in the management of people with overweight or obesity and FA. This may be even more important than for people with depression alone, but future research is needed to explore these relationships further.

References

Hauck C, Cook B, Ellrott T . Food addiction, eating addiction and eating disorders. Proc Nutr Soc. 2019; 79(1):103-112. DOI: 10.1017/S0029665119001162. View

Flint A, Gearhardt A, Corbin W, Brownell K, Field A, Rimm E . Food-addiction scale measurement in 2 cohorts of middle-aged and older women. Am J Clin Nutr. 2014; 99(3):578-86. PMC: 3927691. DOI: 10.3945/ajcn.113.068965. View

Rivera-Mateos M, Ramos-Lopez O . Prevalence of food addiction and its association with lifestyle factors in undergraduate students from Northwest Mexico. J Addict Dis. 2022; 41(4):308-316. DOI: 10.1080/10550887.2022.2116252. View

Andreacchi A, Griffith L, Guindon G, Mayhew A, Bassim C, Pigeyre M . Body mass index, waist circumference, waist-to-hip ratio, and body fat in relation to health care use in the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging. Int J Obes (Lond). 2021; 45(3):666-676. DOI: 10.1038/s41366-020-00731-z. View

Dunstan D, Scott N . Assigning Clinical Significance and Symptom Severity Using the Zung Scales: Levels of Misclassification Arising from Confusion between Index and Raw Scores. Depress Res Treat. 2018; 2018:9250972. PMC: 5828114. DOI: 10.1155/2018/9250972. View

Loeber S, Rustemeier M, Paslakis G, Pietrowsky R, Muller A, Herpertz S . Mood and restrained eating moderate food-associated response inhibition in obese individuals with binge eating disorder. Psychiatry Res. 2018; 264:346-353. DOI: 10.1016/j.psychres.2018.03.081. View

Brytek-Matera A, Obeid S, Akel M, Hallit S . How Does Food Addiction Relate to Obesity? Patterns of Psychological Distress, Eating Behaviors and Physical Activity in a Sample of Lebanese Adults: The MATEO Study. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2021; 18(20). PMC: 8535988. DOI: 10.3390/ijerph182010979. View

Gearhardt A, Boswell R, White M . The association of "food addiction" with disordered eating and body mass index. Eat Behav. 2014; 15(3):427-33. PMC: 4115253. DOI: 10.1016/j.eatbeh.2014.05.001. View

Benbaibeche H, Saidi H, Bounihi A, Koceir E . Emotional and external eating styles associated with obesity. J Eat Disord. 2023; 11(1):67. PMC: 10152697. DOI: 10.1186/s40337-023-00797-w. View

10.

Lawlor E, Islam N, Bates S, Griffin S, Hill A, Hughes C . Third-wave cognitive behaviour therapies for weight management: A systematic review and network meta-analysis. Obes Rev. 2020; 21(7):e13013. PMC: 7379202. DOI: 10.1111/obr.13013. View

11.

Konttinen H, van Strien T, Mannisto S, Jousilahti P, Haukkala A . Depression, emotional eating and long-term weight changes: a population-based prospective study. Int J Behav Nutr Phys Act. 2019; 16(1):28. PMC: 6427874. DOI: 10.1186/s12966-019-0791-8. View

12.

Jiang M, Zou Y, Xin Q, Cai Y, Wang Y, Qin X . Dose-response relationship between body mass index and risks of all-cause mortality and disability among the elderly: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Clin Nutr. 2018; 38(4):1511-1523. DOI: 10.1016/j.clnu.2018.07.021. View

13.

Becetti I, Bwenyi E, de Araujo I, Ard J, Cryan J, Farooqi I . The Neurobiology of Eating Behavior in Obesity: Mechanisms and Therapeutic Targets: A Report from the 23rd Annual Harvard Nutrition Obesity Symposium. Am J Clin Nutr. 2023; 118(1):314-328. PMC: 10375463. DOI: 10.1016/j.ajcnut.2023.05.003. View

14.

Davis C . The epidemiology and genetics of binge eating disorder (BED). CNS Spectr. 2015; 20(6):522-9. DOI: 10.1017/S1092852915000462. View

15.

Visseren F, Mach F, Smulders Y, Carballo D, Koskinas K, Back M . 2021 ESC Guidelines on cardiovascular disease prevention in clinical practice. Eur Heart J. 2021; 42(34):3227-3337. DOI: 10.1093/eurheartj/ehab484. View

16.

Luppino F, de Wit L, Bouvy P, Stijnen T, Cuijpers P, Penninx B . Overweight, obesity, and depression: a systematic review and meta-analysis of longitudinal studies. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2010; 67(3):220-9. DOI: 10.1001/archgenpsychiatry.2010.2. View

17.

Chao A, Shaw J, Pearl R, Alamuddin N, Hopkins C, Bakizada Z . Prevalence and psychosocial correlates of food addiction in persons with obesity seeking weight reduction. Compr Psychiatry. 2016; 73:97-104. PMC: 5269607. DOI: 10.1016/j.comppsych.2016.11.009. View

18.

Gearhardt A, DiFeliceantonio A . The risks of misclassifying addictive food substances as non-addictive. Addiction. 2023; 118(4):605-606. DOI: 10.1111/add.16140. View

19.

Kiyici S, Koca N, Sigirli D, Aslan B, Guclu M, Kisakol G . Food Addiction Correlates with Psychosocial Functioning More Than Metabolic Parameters in Patients with Obesity. Metab Syndr Relat Disord. 2020; 18(3):161-167. DOI: 10.1089/met.2019.0108. View

20.

Escriva-Martinez T, Galiana L, Herrero R, Rodriguez-Arias M, Fernandez-Aranda F, Gearhardt A . Food addiction and its relationship with other eating behaviours among Spanish university students. J Eat Disord. 2023; 11(1):60. PMC: 10100167. DOI: 10.1186/s40337-023-00772-5. View