ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVES: The study was conducted to investigate the relationship between several stress measures in everyday life, emotional eating behavior, and dietary pattern (snacks, fatty foods, sweet beverages, fruits and vegetables) in school-aged children. METHODS: One hundred and ninety-four students of an elementary school located in Seongnam City participated in the study. The students responded to the survey questionnaire by self-report, which consisted of items regarding general characteristics, height, weight, dietary habits, frequency of consuming healthy (fruits and vegetables) and unhealthy foods (snacks, fatty foods, and sweet beverages), emotional eating behavior, and daily stress. Correlational analysis was performed to examine the relationship between stress, emotional eating behavior, and dietary pattern, and Poisson and logistic regression analyses were conducted to investigate the effects of stress on dietary pattern. RESULTS: Positive correlations were found between all stress factors and emotional eating behavior and between the friend and personal factor (one of the stress factors) and the consumption of sweet beverages. The frequency of consuming sweet beverages was 2.6 times higher in the high stress group than in the low stress group (95% CI). CONCLUSIONS: Children's daily stress was associated with emotional eating behavior and undesirable dietary pattern such as consumption of sweet beverages.