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Emotional eating among Lebanese adults: scale validation, prevalence and correlates

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Eating and Weight Disorders - Studies on Anorexia, Bulimia and Obesity Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Objectives

The present study aimed at developing an Arabic version of the Emotional Eating Scale (EES) and examining its reliability and validity among a sample of the Lebanese population. The secondary objective was to evaluate the correlation between emotional eating and body dissatisfaction along with depression and/or self-esteem among a representative sample of the Lebanese population.

Methods

This cross-sectional study was conducted between January and May 2018. The sample was drawn proportionately from all Lebanese Mohafazat.

Results

All items could be extracted from the list, except items 17 and 19. The EES items converged over a solution of four factors that had an Eigenvalue over 1, explaining a total of 67.06% of the variance (KMO = 0.939; Bartlett’s test of sphericity p < 0.001; αCronbach = 0.952). A higher body dissatisfaction was significantly associated with higher emotional eating (β = 0.31) and lower self-esteem (β =  − 0.054); however, no significant association was found with depression. Self-esteem and depression were not found to be significantly associated with emotional eating. When introducing depression and self-esteem as mediator factors for body dissatisfaction and emotional eating, body dissatisfaction did not remain significantly associated with emotional eating.

Conclusion

In this study, the Emotional Eating Scale was validated in Arabic among the Lebanese adult population, making this scale usable in further Lebanese research. Moreover, our results showed that body dissatisfaction was positively correlated with emotional eating and self-esteem, but not with depression. A positive association between body dissatisfaction and emotional eating was also demonstrated. This research offers new perspectives for the evaluation of emotional eating among the Lebanese adult population.

Level of evidence

Level V Cross-sectional descriptive study.

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Funding

The authors did not obtain any funding for this project.

Author information

Author notes

  1. Pascale Salameh and Souheil Hallit are last co-authors.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Science, Lebanese University, Fanar, Lebanon

    Clara Rahme

  2. Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Holy Spirit University of Kaslik (USEK), Jounieh, Lebanon

    Sahar Obeid

  3. Research Department, Psychiatric Hospital of the Cross, P.O. Box 60096, Jall-Eddib, Lebanon

    Sahar Obeid & Chadia Haddad

  4. INSPECT-LB, Institut National de Santé Publique, Épidémiologie Clinique et Toxicologie-Liban, Beirut, Lebanon

    Sahar Obeid, Hala Sacre, Pascale Salameh & Souheil Hallit

  5. Tropical Neuroepidemiology, Institute of Epidemiology and Tropical Neurology, INSERM, Univ. Limoges, CHU Esquirol, IRD, GEIST, U1094, Limoges, France

    Chadia Haddad

  6. Faculty of Medicine and Medical Sciences, Holy Spirit University of Kaslik (USEK), Jounieh, Lebanon

    Rabih Hallit & Souheil Hallit

  7. Faculty of Pharmacy, Lebanese University, Hadat, Lebanon

    Pascale Salameh

  8. Faculty of Medicine, Lebanese University, Hadat, Lebanon

    Pascale Salameh

Authors
  1. Clara Rahme
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  2. Sahar Obeid
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  3. Hala Sacre
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  4. Chadia Haddad
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  5. Rabih Hallit
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  6. Pascale Salameh
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  7. Souheil Hallit
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Sahar Obeid or Souheil Hallit.

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Conflict of interest

The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.

Ethical approval

The Psychiatric Hospital of the Cross Ethics and Research Committee, in compliance with the Hospital’s Regulatory Research Protocol, approved this study protocol (HPC-020-2018) based on multiple objectives involving the validation of many disordered eating scales and factors associated with them (restrained eating, binge eating, orthorexia nervosa, emotional eating and body dissatisfaction).

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A written informed consent was obtained from each participant.

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Rahme, C., Obeid, S., Sacre, H. et al. Emotional eating among Lebanese adults: scale validation, prevalence and correlates. Eat Weight Disord 26, 1069–1078 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40519-020-01001-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40519-020-01001-7

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