Stress Eating amongst Medical Students

Background: Stress among medical students is believed to alter their eating behavior that results either in suppression of food intake or consumption of energy dense foods and infrequent daily meals.The aim of the study was to study the impact of stress on nutritional status and dietary habits among medical students. Methods: An observational study was conducted on 150 medical students aged between 20-36 years in two colleges and two hospitals of Mumbai suburb region. A self - reported close ended questionnaire was incorporated which consisted of anthropometry, dietary habits, Cohen's Perceived Stress Scale for stress assessment and Emotional Eating Questionnaires to assess the emotional eating behavior. Statistical Analysis: The data was analyzed using SPSS software version 20 for Windows. Results: Medical students reflected different kinds of emotional eating behaviors with a greater prevalence of happy eating followed by bored eating, anxiety eating, depressed and lonely eating. Most of the medical students were emotional eaters as the mean emotional eating score was 11.87 ? 4.71, a score that categorizes an individual as an emotional eater. The percentage of obese individuals was 53 % and that of overweight was 15 %. A positive co relation was found between emotional eating and BMI indicating that an individual?s emotional eating pattern can have an impact on their nutritional status. A comparison between very emotional eaters and low or non emotional eaters showed that students who were very emotional eaters had a greater BMI. Also very emotional eaters consumed highest amounts of calories, carbohydrate, protein and fat as compared to non emotional eaters. Conclusion: Higher levels of stress and altered emotional eating behavior can negatively influence the nutritional status of a medical student over a period of time.