Eating behaviour characteristics and dietary intake among Japanese junior high school students: A cross-sectional study

Background Psychological characteristics of eating behaviour may be related to dietary habits. Aim We investigated the association between eating behaviour characteristics and nutrition and food intake adequacy in Japanese adolescents. Methods This cross-sectional survey was conducted among 136 junior high school students (boys: 90, girls: 46) at a junior high school in Tokyo, Japan. Eating behaviour was categorised into three types (emotional, external, and restrained) using scores on the Japanese version of the Dutch Eating Behaviour Questionnaire. Dietary intake was assessed using a validated, brief self-administered diet history questionnaire. Inadequate nutrient intake was determined by counting the number of nutrients not meeting the dietary reference intake (DRI) for the Japanese population. The statistical analyses included Wilcoxon signed-rank tests, Spearman's rank correlation coefficient, and multiple regression analysis using JMP ver.14 (SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC, USA). All reported p values are two-tailed, and p < 0.05 was regarded as statistically significant. Results Multiple regression analysis showed that restrained eating score was inversely associated with the number of nutrients not meeting the DRI (beta = - 0.28; p = 0.0027) and with total weight of snack intake (beta = - 0.30; p = 0.0010). Neither emotional nor external eating was significantly associated with the number of nutrients not meeting the DRI and with total weight of snack intake. Conclusions These results suggest that adolescents with low restrained eating scores may have less self-control over their eating behaviour and may therefore have inadequate dietary intake.