Purpose: Eating behaviors are a contributor to obesity, yet more research is needed examining time varying and time-invariant factors associated with food consumption. Psychological eating factors (e.g., restraint, disinhibition, and susceptibility to hunger) and affect have been associated with obesity and diet. However, less is known about how psychological eating factors and affect are associated with food consumption assessed in daily life. The purpose of this study was to examine associations among psychological eating factors, affect, and food consumption using ecological momentary assessment (EMA) in a non-clinical sample of college students.
Method: Young adults (N = 30; Mage = 21) completed traditional self-report measures of psychological eating factors and usual dietary intake and EMA measures of food consumption and affect.
Results: Momentary negative affect was associated with greater sugary beverage consumption, and sugary food consumption in the past 2.5 h was associated with report of higher current negative affect. Susceptibility to hunger, disinhibited and emotional eating, and baseline unhealthy eating were positively related to sugary food consumption. Lower susceptibility to hunger was associated with more sugary beverage intake. Finally, increased aggregate EMA negative affect and positive affect were related to increased fruit consumption, and lower susceptibility to hunger and baseline unhealthy eating were associated with vegetable consumption.
Conclusions: Results provide support for the role of time varying and invariant factors in predicting eating behaviors in daily life; both may be important to consider in obesity prevention and intervention. Particularly, ecological momentary interventions targeting affective states in individuals' daily lives may be useful for changing food intake.
Level of evidence: Level IV, multiple time series.
Keywords: Affect; Diet quality; Disinhibition; Eating behaviors; Ecological momentary assessment; Restraint.