title: The emotional eating scale. Can a self-report measure predict observed emotional eating?
abstract: We assessed the validity of the emotional eating scale (EES) by examining whether the EES predicted food intake following two negative mood inductions. Participants underwent mood inductions for anxiety, anger and neutral mood, then received snack foods in a sham palatability test. EES anxiety, but not anger, predicted intake. Participants high on EES anxiety consumed more snacks during the anxiety mood induction, whereas participants low on EES anxiety consumed less snacks. Results suggest that EES anxiety is a predictor of anxiety-driven eating and may be used to assess emotional eating when direct observation of intake is not possible.
authors.affiliation: University of Massachusetts Medical School, Department of Medicine, Division of Preventive and Behavioral Medicine, 55 Lake Avenue North, Worcester, MA 01655, USA. kristin.schneider@umassmed.edu
authors.forename: Kristin L
authors.initials: KL
authors.lastname: Schneider
authors.forename: Emily
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Panza
authors.forename: Bradley M
authors.initials: BM
authors.lastname: Appelhans
authors.forename: Matthew C
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Whited
authors.forename: Jessica L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Oleski
authors.forename: Sherry L
authors.initials: SL
authors.lastname: Pagoto
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect; D000786:Anger; D001007:Anxiety; D004435:Eating / Q000523:psychology*; D004644:Emotions; D005247:Feeding Behavior / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D057566:Self Report / Q000592:standards*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires