An investigation into whether snack choices differ between emotional eaters and non-emotional eaters

Eating patterns and behaviour have been linked to the increasing incidence of \nweight-related health risks. Understanding the motivations behind certain food \nchoices, particularly high energy-dense foods is therefore of importance. The \npurpose of this research was to get a better understanding of the snack \nchoices of emotional eaters and how these compared to non-emotional \neaters. Participants, 100 male and female students, completed a \nquestionnaire to determine emotional eating and snacking habits. Analyses of \nthe data collected revealed that there was a weak, yet statistically significant \ncorrelation between the consumption of sweet snacks and emotional eating \nscore, but no significant difference was found between fast food, savoury \nsnacks or fruit. There was a significant difference in the emotional eating \nscores between genders (males mean score 15.2 ± 1.7, females mean score \n24.6 ± 2.4) with females showing more prevalence towards being emotional \neaters. The main conclusion drawn is sweet snacks were consumed more \nfrequently by emotional eaters and females were more likely to have higher \nemotional eating scores.