Associative Eating Behaviors and Eating Disorders among Adult Men and Women with Varying Body Mass Index- A Descriptive Study In Urban Population

Background: Maladaptive eating behaviors and eating disorders are major determinants of overweight and obesity. Environment and urbanization exert tremendous effect on eating behaviors in population. Objective: The present study aims to identify prevalence of eating behaviors and eating disorders and their association to body weights among adult men and women in an urban region of south India. Method: This was a quantitative observational study. Men (107) and women (193) aged 27 to 47 years having BMI varying between 18.5 and 40 participated. Selection was based on purposive sampling method. Demographic details were obtained and eating behaviors and eating disorders were assessed using appropriate questionnaires. Height and weight of all the participants was obtained using standard techniques. Results: Our results demonstrated significant positive influence of eating patterns on body weight status, especially non-vegetarian diet practice, munching, number of meals consumed per day, meal skipping, eating outside home, high-fat eating and snacking. Munching(31% females, 35% males) was a common practice. Binge eating, picky eating, night eating, restrained eating and uncontrolled eating was found in less than 10% of the population. Emotional eating and food cravings were prevalent in markedly higher percentage of participants and were significantly associated with overweight and obesity (P<0.05). Conclusion: It is evident from the study that eating practices and eating disorders prevalent were essentially similar to those in developed countries. Occurrences of these eating disorders are indicative of the risk for an increase in overweight and obesity among population from underdeveloped countries.