Maladaptive eating behaviors and health-related quality of life in Spanish children

• Published in: Appetite 2024-12, Vol.203, p.107702, Article 107702
• Main Authors: Juton, Charlotte, Según, Genís, Berruezo, Paula, Torres, Silvia, Lecegui, Paula, Rajmil, Luis, Fernández-Aranda, Fernando, Fíto, Montserrat, Gómez, Santiago F., Schröder, Helmut
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: appetite; Child; Child Behavior - psychology; Children; Eating behavior; education; Emotions; Feeding and Eating Disorders - psychology; Feeding Behavior - psychology; Female; Follow-Up Studies; Health Related Quality of Life (HRQoL); Humans; Male; physical activity; Prospective Studies; quality of life; Quality of Life - psychology; Spain; Surveys and Questionnaires
• ISSN: 0195-6663; 1095-8304; 1095-8304
• DOI: 10.1016/j.appet.2024.107702

In children, assessing health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and identifying the factors that can influence it are essential to understanding their overall health and well-being. Although eating disorders in children have been associated with reduced HRQoL, the impact of maladaptive eating behaviors, such as external eating, emotional eating and restrained eating, on children's HRQoL has not yet been prospectively explored. Therefore, the aim of this study was to determine whether external, emotional and restrained eating at baseline was associated with HRQoL in children after 14.65 months (95% CI: 14.57–14.73) of follow-up. The study involved 690 boys and 681 girls aged between 8 and 10 years, recruited from primary schools in Catalonia (Spain). To assess the relationship between external, emotional and restrained eating behaviors at baseline and HRQoL at follow-up, the Dutch Eating Behavior and KIDSCREEN-10 questionnaires were used, respectively. After adjusting for sex, age, intervention allocation group, school, maternal education, zBMI and physical activity, external and emotional eating behaviors at baseline were negatively associated with HRQoL at follow-up (p