Negative emotion-related eating behaviours in young women with underweight status, overweight status, anorexia nervosa, and bulimia nervosa in Korea

Objective This study aimed at investigating the negative emotion-related eating behaviours of young women with extreme weights or eating disorders (EDs). Method A total of 808 young women participated including 144 with underweight (UW), 364 with normal-weight (NW) and 137 with overweight (OW; including 27 with obesity) from universities, and 63 patients with anorexia nervosa (AN), and 100 patients with bulimia nervosa (BN) from a hospital. Participants were interviewed and completed questionnaires on eating behaviours related to negative emotions. Results While both OW and BN groups ate more in response to negative emotions, UW and AN groups ate less compared to NW group. Negative feelings after overeating were prominent in OW group and patients with ED. In negative emotions, patients with EDs preferred sweet tastes, but BN group preferred spicy tastes less. Patients with EDs had increased external eating, and BN group also showed increased restrained eating. Neuroticism had indirect impacts on OW status via emotional eating unlike BN. Conclusions The results suggest that UW and OW status were on the spectrum of emotional eating, and AN and BN were on the extremes of external eating, which may be integrated into the development of interventions targeting each status.