Exploring the Relationship Between Emotional Eating Behaviors and Dietary Patterns Using a Gamified Dietary Assessment Tool

Corresponding author: lintianwu, tw_lin82@163.com

DOI: 10.12201/bmr.202504.00039

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  Abstract: Purpose: To examine the association between emotional eating behaviors and dietary patterns, and to evaluate the potential of a gamified dietary assessment tool for studying nutritional status among children and adolescents, providing scientific support for dietary behavior interventions. Methods: Participants aged 6–18 years from a middle school in Shenzhen were recruited. Dietary intake data were collected using a buffet-style gamified dietary tool, and emotional eating behaviors were assessed via a dimension of the Intuitive Eating Scale. Five dietary patterns—low-energy-density, staple-vegetable, high-carbohydrate-low-protein, meat-egg-high-protein, and seafood-egg-dairy—were identified through principal component analysis. Wilcoxon rank-sum test, multiple linear regression, and subgroup analyses were conducted, adjusting for gender, age, and other confounders to explore the relationships in specific subgroups. Results: 855 valid samples were included. Emotional eating scores were significantly negatively associated with the low-energy-density dietary pattern (adjusted β = -1.70, 95% CI: -2.97 to -0.43). Subgroup analysis revealed stronger negative associations in females between emotional eating and the low-energy-density (β = -2.42) and seafood-egg-dairy patterns (β = -1.58), while no significant relationships were observed in males. Besides, age-based and BMI-Z-Scores-based analysis showed no significant differences. Conclusions: The gamified dietary assessment tool demonstrated strong validity in capturing dietary behavior, particularly unhealthy tendencies, among children and adolescents. Emotional eating significantly influenced dietary choices, with a stronger impact observed in females. These findings provide scientific insights for targeted nutritional interventions and showcase the potential of digital tools in large-scale nutritional research.

  Key words: Dietary; survey, Gamification, Children; and adolescents, Nutrition; and health

  Submit time: 14 April 2025

  Copyright: The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted biomedRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity.
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