Thesis (Ph.D.)--State University of New York at Albany, 2009
Obesity is a major health crisis in the United States, with approximately two-thirds of the population qualifying as overweight and, of those, almost one half qualifying as obese (CDC, 2007). While there are a myriad of causes of obesity, a great deal of evidence shows that many individuals, and particularly women, eat as a coping response to stress (e.g., Greeno & Wing, 1994). Therefore, one's ability to cope, or the process by which individuals deal with situations that involve stress or threat, may be a factor that contributes to increased body mass index, or BMI, a common measure of obesity. Emotional eating was investigated as a potential mediating variable which could drive this relationship between coping and obesity
Three specific coping strategies were explored in this study: problem-focused coping, avoidant coping, and emotional approach coping. It was hypothesized that all three coping strategies would be associated with obesity and that this relationship would be mediated by a continuous measure of emotional eating. Select subscales from the dispositional version of the COPE (Carver, Scheier, & Weintraub, 1989) were used to measure problem-focused and avoidant coping; two subscales designed by Stanton, Kirk, Cameron, and Danoff-Burg (2000) were added to measure emotional approach. A total scale score on the Emotional Eating Scale (EES; Arnow, Kenardy, & Agras, 1995) was used to measure emotional eating. The outcome variable, BMI, was calculated from reported height and weight and dichotomized into two categories: normal weight (BMI of 18.5-24.9) and overweight/obese (BMI of 25+)
The population of interest was adult, non-eating disordered women; women who were pregnant, underweight, or have had weight loss surgery were exluded. Participants were recruited to take the online survey through listservs and through social networking sites, Facebook and craigslist. Three meditational analyses were done using both Baron and Kenny's (1986) steps for mediation and bootstrapping techniques (Preacher and Hayes, 2004). Results showed significant findings that emotional eating partially mediates the relationships between all three coping strategies and BMI. The findings suggest that both coping and emotional eating are key variables in clinical intervention for both prevention and treatment of obesity
