ArticleAppetite2021
Emotional eating during COVID-19 in the United Kingdom: Exploring the roles of alexithymia and emotion dysregulation.
Article in Appetite, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 43 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
43 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 98 citations in OpenAlex.
- Relationship between Mental Health and Emotional Eating during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Systematic Review.Nutrients · 2022Pooled it
- The Association of Restrained Eating and Overeating during COVID-19: A Cross-Lagged Model.Nutrients · 2021Trial
- Eating Motives and Other Factors Predicting Emotional Overeating during COVID-19 in a Sample of Polish Adults.Nutrients · 2021Trial
- Phenol-Rich Food Acceptability: The Influence of Variations in Sweetness Optima and Sensory-Liking Patterns.Nutrients · 2021Trial
- The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Weight Loss and Quality of Life One Year Post Metabolic Bariatric Surgery.Obesity surgery · 2026Article
- Interoceptive mechanisms of a mobile heart rate variability biofeedback app for eating disorder symptoms: Proof-of-concept findings.Eating behaviors · 2026Article
- Prevalence of negative emotional eating in middle-aged adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Journal of eating disorders · 2025Article
- Recalling Perceptions, Emotions, Behaviours, and Changes in Weight Status Among University Students After the Pandemic Experience.Nutrients · 2025Article
- Reliability and validity of the Turkish version of the Salzburg emotional eating scale: a psychometric study.Journal of eating disorders · 2025Article
- Recent Developments in Eating Disorders in Children: A Comprehensive Perspective.Journal of clinical medicine · 2025Article
- Alexithymia: Toward an Experimental, Processual Affective Science with Effective Interventions.Annual review of psychology · 2025Review
- Lifestyle Habits and Nutritional Profile of the Spanish Population: A Comparison Between the Period During and After the COVID-19 Pandemic.Foods (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Older Adults' Exposure to Food Media Induced Unhealthy Eating during the COVID-19 Omicron Lockdown? Exploring Negative Emotions and Associated Literacy and Efficacy on Shanghainese.Foods (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Social Networking Site Use and Emotional Eating Behaviors among Chinese Adolescents: The Effects of Negative Social Comparisons and Perspective-Taking.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Emotional Overeating during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Polish Adolescents' COVID-19 Experience (PLACE-19) Study.Nutrients · 2023Article
- Review
- The impact of COVID-19 on the changes in health behaviours among Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) communities in the United Kingdom (UK): a scoping review.BMC public health · 2023Article
- Sex-specific mechanisms for eating disorder risk in men and women with autistic traits: the role of alexithymia.Journal of eating disorders · 2023Article
- Change in Diet Quality and Meal Sources during the COVID-19 Pandemic in a Diverse Subset of Men and Women in the Cancer Prevention Study-3.Nutrients · 2023Article
- Network analysis of eating disorder and depression symptoms among university students in the late stage of COVID-19 pandemic in China.Frontiers in nutrition · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Emotional eating, generally defined as (over)-eating in response to negative emotions, has been associated with poor physical and psychological outcomes. During a time of heightened negative affect, it is important to understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and associated lockdown measures on eating behaviours, and further elucidate the ways in which emotional eating is related to emotion dysregulation and impaired abilities to identify emotions (i.e. alexithymia). The aims of this study were to explore perceived changes in eating behaviours in relation to self-reported negative affect during the pandemic and to examine direct and indirect effects of alexithymia on emotional eating. An online questionnaire measured these constructs in the general population of the United Kingdom (n = 136). Findings demonstrated that those who reported changes to their eating behaviours during the pandemic also reported greater levels of depression during the same time frame. Mediation analyses revealed that difficulties identifying and describing feelings both predicted emotional eating indirectly via emotion dysregulation. Findings contribute to the understanding of the mechanisms underpinning the relationship between alexithymia and emotional eating and describe changes to eating behaviours during COVID-19. We discuss how these findings should be applied, and recommendations for future research.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.