Does "Comfort Food" Work? How Using Food to Cope is Associated With Self-Reported Physical Health and Weight-Related Health
Open Access
- Author:
- Ward, Megan Elizabeth
- Graduate Program:
- Human Development and Family Studies
- Degree:
- Master of Science
- Document Type:
- Master Thesis
- Date of Defense:
- July 17, 2009
- Committee Members:
- David Manuel Almeida, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor
David Manuel Almeida, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor
Steven Howard Zarit, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor - Keywords:
- using food to cope
coping
overweight. obesity
weight-related health
emotional eating
health - Abstract:
- Almost three quarters of adults in the United States over the age of 20 are overweight or obese (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2009). The diseases and the risk of death associated with being overweight have a major influence on everyday functioning and quality of life. In addition, being overweight comes with major financial, personal and social costs. The way that people cope with stressors may be a cause of weight gain. This study uses data from Projects 1 and 4 of the MIDUS II to examine age and gender differences in using food to cope, how using food to cope is related to global health and weight-related health, and if age or gender moderate the associations. Principal components analyses and a series of hierarchical linear regressions are used to answer the research questions. The results of the analyses indicate that using food, as a distinct dimension of coping, is as prevalent as problem-focused and emotion-focused coping, and predicts poorer health. Younger individuals use more food to cope than older individuals and women use more food to cope than men. Age and gender interact, as well, and women decrease more steeply than men in their use of food to cope over the lifespan. Problem-focused coping predicts better self-reported physical health, lower BMI and fewer high-risk markers of metabolic load. Emotion-focused coping predicts poorer self-reported physical health. Using food to cope predicts poorer self-reported physical health, greater BMI, weight fluctuation and percentage of glycosylated hemoglobin, and more high-risk markers of metabolic load. The results of this study suggest using food to cope is associated with the epidemic of overweight and obesity in the United States. Implications and future research directions are discussed.