Childhood obesity and food addiction

Childhood obesity has been a major health concern for decades now, especially in western countries like the United States, and its alarming rate of growth allows it to be considered a pandemic. The factors that contribute to the development of childhood obesity can be categorized on both a macro- and microscopic level, spanning from national attitudes toward food, all the way to individual trauma. This work attempts to condense some of the latest research on factors contributing to childhood obesity in order to construct a more holistic picture of its causes. Some of the topics discussed in this article demographic and cultural consideration as well as family life and genetic predisposition toward obesity. Finally, the article looks at the ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic have affected childhood obesity in the United States ad projections that can be made from the increasing rate of weight gain among children. © 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

The impact of mean body mass index on reported mortality from COVID-19 across 181 countries.

Accountability for global health issues such as a pandemic and its devastating consequences are usually ascribed to a virus, but a comprehensive view should also take into account the state of the host. Data suggests that excessive nutrition is to blame for a yet unknown but not negligible portion of deaths attributed to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. We analyzed the correlation between mean body mass index (BMI) and 2-year coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) mortality rates reported by 181 countries worldwide. Almost two thirds of the countries included had a mean BMI greater or equal to 25, with death rates ranging from 3 to 6,280 per million. Death rates in countries with a mean BMI below 25 ranged from 3 to 1,533. When the analysis was restricted to countries where the extent of testing was deemed more representative of actual mortality, only 20.1% had a mean BMI <25 but the mortality difference persisted. A second analysis looking at pre-vaccination mortality obtained from a different source led to similar conclusions. Due to the nature of the variables, reverse causation can be excluded while common causation can not. A mean BMI <25 for a country seems to spare its citizens from the highest COVID-19 mortality rates. The impact of excess weight on global COVID-19 mortality is suspected to have been much higher than what currently perceived, here estimated at no less than a fourfold increase in mortality. Countries with normal mean BMI constitute precious test beds for the quantification of the effects of overeating on COVID-19 mortality.

Time estimation and passage of time judgment predict eating behaviors during COVID-19 lockdown.

Poor eating habits often lead to health concerns. While mental health conditions such as stress and anxiety have been linked as predictors for eating behaviors, cognitive factors may also contribute to eating practices during the early stages of the mandatory COVID-19 lockdown. In the current study, participants responded to a survey that asked them to judge the passing of time (PoTJ) and to produce short intervals (via a time production task) as an index of the internal clock speed. Additionally, they responded to questions about snacking frequency and the tendency to overeat during lockdown. We observed that those who judged time to pass slowly also reported a greater tendency to snack and overeat during the pandemic. Additional analysis also revealed that the effect of PoTJ on snacking is moderated by the internal clock speed such that those who felt time was passing by slowly, and in combination with a faster internal clock (as indexed by shorter duration production), had a greater tendency to snack. The results suggest that different aspects of temporal cognition play potential roles in influencing different types of eating behaviors. Our findings therefore have implications for eating disorders, along with the potential of time-based intervention or behavioral modification approaches.

Coronavirus stress and overeating: the role of anxiety and COVID-19 burnout.

BACKGROUND: This study examined the role of anxiety and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) burnout in the relationship between coronavirus stress and overeating among Chinese college students during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: Chinese college students (N = 2926; Mage = 19.90, SD = 1.47, range = 18-25 years old; 54.34% female) completed self-reported online questionnaires regarding coronavirus stress, anxiety, COVID-19 burnout, and overeating. RESULTS: Anxiety showed partially indirect effect on the association between coronavirus stress and overeating. COVID-19 burnout exacerbated the indirect pathway between coronavirus stress and overeating via anxiety. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: This is the first study, to our knowledge, that examines the underlying mechanisms of the coronavirus stress and overeating behavior association among Chinese college students. The results support several existing theories on stress and problematic eating behaviors and provide practical implications for prevention and intervention programs of overeating during the COVID-19 pandemic.

One's response is not arbitrary when confronted with the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Previous research has found that individuals with coronavirus stress still be more prone to overeat. We also know from other research that anxiety is the most salient aspect of overeating. However, no research has investigated whether the coronavirus stress of college students is significantly associated with overeating and examine the potential indirect pathway and moderating mechanisms in this association. With the aid of 2926 participants, we found that, coronavirus stress was linked to college students' overeating. We also found that this relationship was partially explained by anxiety. In addition, the association between anxiety and overeating was stronger for those with higher COVID-19 burnout. This study is an important step in unpacking how coronavirus stress relates to overeating of Chinese college students. However, they are limited by the cross-sectional nature of the study, meaning we cannot imply causality. We recommend that further research replicate our findings in people with diagnosed feeding and eating disorders using a longitudinal design.

THE RELATIONSHIP OF EDACIOUS BEHAVIOR AND ZOOM FATIGUE IN THE MILLENNIUM STUDENTS OF INDIA

The closure of educational institutions in India in March 2020 due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic resulted in an unexpected shift of students from traditional face to face classes to online learning.While the institutions, quickly tried to teach in a new format, the students continuously faced new challenges. The present study highlights to recognize and address the relationship between Edacious Behavior and Zoom Fatigue in the MillenniumStudents of India. The study followsa review of the literature approach. The finding of the study reveals that online learning has had many adverse effects on students' health and performance. Continuous online gazing on a laptop by students leads to stress because of which there is an increased tendency towards food consumption at irregular periods.The emotional and physical fatigue that accompanied seemingly endless zoomlearning includes feeling tired and exhausted andapparently even the possibility of overindulging. © The Electrochemical Society

The Association of COVID-19 Stressors and Family Health on Overeating before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Prior studies have examined how stress and the family environment affect overeating, but less is known about how COVID-19 stressors and family health may affect overeating during the COVID-19 pandemic. The research questions included: (1) Did COVID-19-related stressors increase the risk for overeating among adults in the United States? (2) Did family health protect against overeating during a pandemic? The sample included 443 participants aged 18 years and older living in the United States who were recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk. Stata version 16 was used to analyze the data using multiple linear regression. The results indicate that one year into the pandemic, COVID-19 stressors were associated with increased overeating, even after adjusting for overeating before the pandemic. More family health resources were associated with less overeating. These results indicate that although COVID-19 stressors were associated with overeating, greater family health resources helped prevent overeating. Interventions and policies that aim to increase health resources for families may be particularly beneficial at preventing overeating and obesity in the face of long- and short-term stress.

Eating behavior of students at the Technical University of Moldova during the isolation period

Appetizing peculiarities are formed from childhood and can vary throughout life. Although they are conditioned by genetic factors, over time, the internal regulation of eating behaviors is reduced, being influenced by a complex interaction of various external factors. According to the Behavioral Susceptibility (BST) Theory of Obesity, Food Sensitivity in Response to Food Stimuli (such as Food Sight and Smell) and Satiety Responsiveness (i.e. the ability to adjust diet in response to internal feelings of satiety) contribute to individual differences in terms of energy intake and weight status. The present research intended to assess the eating patterns and behavior of Moldovan students, especially those from Technical University of Moldova during the social isolation imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The study was conducted, based on the questionnaires (AEBQ - Adult Eating Behavior Questionnaire), on a group of 602 students from Technical University of Moldova. Participation in the survey was entirely voluntary, did not involve any invasive procedure, nor did it induce changes in participants' food patterns. The obtained results could contribute to the formation of the database for the study of the behavioral phenotype associated with the risk of obesity, but also for the study of eating behavior in crises. The questionnaire was distributed, in the form of a link, on the corporate emails of all TUM students. Respondents completed the questionnaire on the Google platform between 13.10.2021 - 25.11.2021, and the final database has been downloaded as a Microsoft Excel file. It was established a positive correlation between, Emotional Over-Eating and Emotional Under-Eating. Nervousness and anger were the most incriminating emotions of students that would cause both overeating and under eating. The results of the AEBQ questionnaire appear to be largely in line with previous studies, and the collected data present interest, in particular to prevent the risk of obesity.

The Association of Restrained Eating and Overeating during COVID-19: A Cross-Lagged Model.

Widespread overeating has been found during the 2019 coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The present study investigated whether pre-pandemic restrained eating (RE) predicted overeating during the pandemic, and further explored the behavioral (mortality threat, negative affect) mechanisms underlying this association. An eight-month longitudinal survey was conducted with a large sample of 616 undergraduates from Southwest university. From September 2019 to April 2020, three measurements were conducted. RE was tested before the pandemic (T1), and data of mortality threat, negative affect, and overeating were collected at the middle (T2) and end of (T3) the COVID-19 crisis in China. The correlation results showed that baseline RE was positively associated with mortality threat, negative affect, and overeating at T2 and T3. Moreover, negative affect and mortality threat were positively correlated with overeating. Results from longitudinal mediation showed that baseline RE would positively predict T3 overeating through T2 negative affect, but not T2 mortality threat. This study supports and extends the counterregulatory eating hypothesis that RE positively predicts future overeating, especially through negative emotions. These findings further reveal the core psychological mechanism underlying this positive RE-overeating relation in the context of COVID-19, indicating that the individuals with higher RE could not cope with negative affect adequately, contributing to more overeating.

Life history strategy and overeating during COVID-19 pandemic: a moderated mediation model of sense of control and coronavirus stress.

BACKGROUND: This study examined the mediating effect of sense of control and the moderating effect of coronavirus stress on the relationship between life history strategy and overeating among Chinese college students during the COVID-19 period. METHODS: 3310 Chinese students (Mage = 19.74, SD = 1.50; 47% males) completed self-reported questionnaires regarding life history strategy, sense of control, overeating, and coronavirus stress. The data were analyzed using Pearson's r correlations and moderated mediation analysis. RESULTS: The results revealed that control sense mediated the link between life history strategy and college students' overeating. College students' coronavirus stress moderated the associations between life history strategy and college students' sense of control and between control sense and overeating. The association between life history strategy and sense of control was stronger for those with lower coronavirus stress, and the association between sense of control and overeating was stronger for those with lower coronavirus stress. CONCLUSIONS: This study identified that the critical factors were associated with overeating. On the one hand, the research deepens the application and interpretation of life history theory in the field of eating; on the other hand, it provides evidence for the prevention of overeating, and provides theoretical basis for psychological assistance among Chinese college students.

Sex difference in neural substrates underlying the association between trait self-control and overeating in the COVID-19 pandemic.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, people are at risk of developing disordered eating behaviors. The present study utilized resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine how trait self-control and its neural mechanisms predict overeating tendencies in young adults during the pandemic. Data on trait self-control, the amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (ALFF), and resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) were collected before COVID-19 (September 2019, T1), and data on overeating were collected during COVID-19 (February 2020, T2). Whole-brain regression analyses (N = 538) revealed that higher trait self-control was associated with higher ALFF in the right dorsolateral and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC, VLPFC) and the left anterior insula, and lower ALFF in the left fusiform gyrus and precuneus. With the DLPFC, fusiform gyrus and precuneus as seed regions, trait selfcontrol was associated with decreased connectivity of the orbitofrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, temporal pole, and insula, and increased connectivity between the right VLPFC and anterior cerebellum. Longitudinal mediation models showed that trait self-control (T1) negatively predicted overeating (T2), and the mediating effects of the fusiform gyrus, DLPFC, and VLPFC were moderated by sex. The present study reveals that the brain networks for trait self-control are mainly involved in cognitive and executive control and incentive and emotional processing, demonstrating the longitudinal benefits of trait self-control in alleviating disordered eating behaviors during the pandemic. Sex differences in the neural substrates underlie this association. These finding may have implications of the interventions for behavioral maladjustment.

Eating Motives and Other Factors Predicting Emotional Overeating during COVID-19 in a Sample of Polish Adults.

We hypothesised that the higher levels of emotion-related predictors (eating motive in the form of affect regulation and COVID-19-related stress) would be associated with higher emotional overeating, after accounting for the effects of demographic variables (gender and BMI) and other eating motives (visual- and attitude-related predictors: liking, pleasure, visual appeal; body- and health-related predictors: need and hunger, health, weight control). Participants (N = 868; Mage = 33.53 years, SD = 11.98) completed: the Eating Motivation Survey, the Emotional Overeating Questionnaire, a COVID-19-related stress measure and a socio-demographic survey. The final step of the regression with emotional overeating was significant; affect regulation and COVID-19-related stress were significantly related to emotional overeating (ΔF p < 0.001, Adj. ΔR2 = 0.13). During the COVID-19 pandemic, eating can, on the one hand, help to cope with the current difficult situation and the negative emotions associated with it; on the other hand, frequent use of this tendency can lead to rigid regulation of affect and use of this mechanism as the dominant mechanism. Therefore, limited social contact, related disruptions in daily activities and stress resulting from COVID-19 should generate appropriate interventions, not necessarily focusing only on emotional eating, but also on the resources of the individual. It is worth encouraging specialists to implement alternative methods of contact with their patients, e.g., online.

COVID-19 Stress and Food Intake: Protective and Risk Factors for Stress-Related Palatable Food Intake in U.S. Adults.

(1) Background: The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has caused disruptions to what people eat, but the pandemic's impact on diet varies between individuals. The goal of our study was to test whether pandemic-related stress was associated with food intake, and whether relationships between stress and intake were modified by appetitive and cognitive traits. (2) Methods: We cross-sectionally surveyed 428 adults to examine current intake frequency of various food types (sweets/desserts, savory snacks, fast food, fruits, and vegetables), changes to food intake during the pandemic, emotional overeating (EOE), cognitive flexibility (CF), and COVID-19-related stress. Models tested associations of stress, EOE, and CF with food intake frequency and changes to intake. (3) Results: Models demonstrated that the positive relationship between stress and intake of sweets/desserts was stronger with higher EOE, while the positive relationship between stress and intake of chips/savory snacks was weaker with higher CF. Higher EOE was associated with greater risk of increased intake of palatable foods. (4) Conclusions: Findings suggest that emotional overeating may escalate stress-associated intake of high-sugar foods, and cognitive flexibility may attenuate stress-associated intake of high-fat foods. Differences in appetitive and cognitive traits may explain changes to and variability in food intake during COVID-19, and efforts to decrease emotional overeating and encourage cognitive flexibility could help lessen the effect of COVID-19-related stress on energy dense food intake.

Poor appetite and overeating reported by adults in Australia during the coronavirus-19 disease pandemic: a population-based study.

OBJECTIVE: As a result of the coronavirus-19 disease (COVID-19) pandemic, Australia adopted emergency measures on 22 March 2020. This study reports the effect of the COVID-19 lockdown on appetite and overeating in Australian adults during the first month of emergency measures. DESIGN: This study reports analysis of data from the population-based, self-completed survey. The main outcome measure was an item from the Patient Health Questionnaire 9 asking: 'Over the past 2 weeks, how often have you been bothered by poor appetite or overeating?'. Data on sociodemographic factors, symptoms of anxiety and depression, and the impact of COVID-19 and lockdown were also collected. Multivariable logistic regression was used to examine associations with poor appetite or overeating. SETTING: An anonymous online survey available from 3 April to 2 May 2020. PARTICIPANTS: A total of 13 829 Australian residents aged 18 years or over. RESULTS: The weighted prevalence of being bothered by poor appetite or overeating in the past 2 weeks was 53·6 %, with 11·6 % (95 % CI 10·6, 12·6) of the cohort reporting poor appetite or overeating nearly every day. High levels of anxiety, concern about contracting COVID-19, being in lockdown with children and reporting a severe impact of the lockdown were associated with increased odds of poor appetite or overeating. CONCLUSIONS: Given the widespread prevalence of being bothered by poor appetite or overeating, universal public health interventions to address emotion-focused or situational eating during periods of lockdown may be appropriate.

Eating to Cope With the COVID-19 Pandemic and Body Weight Change in Young Adults.

PURPOSE: Life disruptions caused by the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic are particularly salient for young adults. Some young adults may engage in unhealthy eating practices to cope with social distancing and isolation during the pandemic, which could increase incidental weight gain. The purpose of this study was to examine the association of eating to cope with the pandemic with body weight change in young adults before versus after spread of COVID-19. METHODS: Data included the baseline (October/2018-October/2019) and follow-up (May/2020-July/2020) assessments from an ongoing longitudinal cohort recruited from Southern California. A diverse sample of participants (54% Hispanic; age = 19.72[.47] years; N = 1,820) completed online self-report measures of weight at baseline and follow-up and were given a checklist of pandemic coping behaviors including overeating (yes/no) and eating high fat or sugary foods (yes/no) to cope with social distancing and isolation during the pandemic. RESULTS: With and without adjusting for confounders, young adults who did versus did not report overeating to cope with the pandemic gained more weight from baseline to follow-up (5.55 vs. 2.54 lbs). Unhealthy food intake to cope with the pandemic was not associated with weight change. Baseline weight moderated the association of eating coping practices with weight change such that individuals with higher baseline weight gained more weight if they engaged in eating to cope behaviors versus not (p's≤.001). CONCLUSIONS: Unhealthy eating behavior to cope with the pandemic and corresponding body weight increases may be occurring in young adults. Interventions to promote healthy eating practices in young adults warrant consideration for weight gain prevention during the pandemic.