اثرات متقابل خویشتن داری رژیم غذایی و چاقی در غذا خوردن ناشی از استرس و انتخاب غذایی کودکان

The Individual Differences Model posits that individual differences in physiological and psychological factors explain eating behaviors in response to stress. The purpose was to determine the effects of individual differences in adiposity, dietary restraint and stress reactivity on children's energy intake and food choices. A total of 40 boys and girls, age 8–12 years, with wide ranges of dietary restraint, adiposity, and stress reactivity were measured for total energy intake and choice of energy dense ‘comfort’ and lower density ‘healthy’ foods following reading and speech stressor manipulations. When exploring the interaction of dietary restraint and stress reactivity, lower restraint/lower reactivity and lower restraint/higher reactivity were associated with reductions in energy intake (37–62 kcal) and comfort food (33–89 kcal). Higher restraint/lower reactivity was associated with consuming 86 fewer total kcal and 45 fewer kcal of comfort food. Only higher restraint/higher reactivity predicted increased energy intake (104 kcal) and comfort food (131 kcal). The interaction of dietary restraint and percentage body fat revealed that lower restraint/lower adiposity was associated with consuming 123 fewer kcal after being stressed with the entire reduction due to a decrease in comfort food. Lower restraint/higher adiposity was associated with consuming 116 kcal more after being stressed with 70% (81 kcal) of the increase in the form of comfort foods. Higher restraint/lower adiposity and higher restraint/higher adiposity were associated with smaller changes in total energy intake of 22 kcal and 1 kcal; respectively. Both restraint and adiposity moderated the effect of stress on energy intake and food choice. Children with greater adiposity may be at risk for stress-induced eating to contribute to their obesity.

Stress may promote weight gain in children by increasing their energy intake, but this is an understudied area. However, some children eat more and others less in response to stress (Roemmich, Wright, & Epstein, 2002). The Individual Differences Model helps to understand how physiological and psychological factors produce varied eating responses to stress (Greeno & Wing, 1994). All obese children may not increase, and all normal weight children may not decrease, their energy intake when stressed. Rather, other individual differences, such as restrained eating may interact with adiposity to moderate stress eating. In the only investigation in this area that has studied children, those with high restraint increased snacking while children with low restraint decreased snacking when stressed (Roemmich et al., 2002). The same has been found in adults (Oliver and Wardle, 1999, Roberts et al., 2007 and Zellner et al., 2006). Psychological stress may also shift children's food choices toward more energy dense sweet and fatty foods. It does in adults (Habhab et al., 2009, Wardle et al., 2000 and Zellner et al., 2006), but there is only correlational evidence in children (Cartwright et al., 2003). The purpose of this study was to determine whether children change food choices when stressed and whether shifts in food choice are moderated by individual differences in children's adiposity, restraint or stress reactivity.