Emotional Eating Assessment of Urban Indian Population

As Homo sapiens, we are at the apex of food pyramid and the difference between us and other animals is our ability to emote with our food. Many of us use food to cope with our feelings- love, anger, boredom, happiness, loneliness, stress, depression, frustration, and anxiety. Emotional eating is conceptualized as consumption of food in response to negative neurological profile. Hence, a research endeavor to examine the associations between specific emotions and emotional eating was carried out. While more common among girls, eating disorders can affect boys, too. A carefully structured questionnaire was self-administered to the urban Indian subjects in the age group of 18-30 years with the view of obtaining a holistic picture of their perspective towards food consumption. The statistically analyzed findings have reconfirmed an emphatic relationship between the subject's attitude towards food and psychosomatic make-up of the subject. The results are indicative of important benchmarks of psychosocial aspects of eating food. The research endeavour is relevant because it mirrors the 'correct' picture of prevalence of emotional eating among young urban Indian population.