Understanding the Associations Among Perceived Stress, Self-Control Skills, and Overeating in Asian Adolescents

Abstract

Objective: Built on Rosenbaum's self-control theory, this study aimed to examine the mediating role of self-control skills in the relationship between perceived stress and overeating patterns among adolescents from an Asia-Pacific region. Methods: A cross-sectional study was used with a school-based, nonclinical sample of 195 adolescents. Participants completed self-report measures assessing study variables and demographic information such as body mass index (BMI) status for adolescents and their parents. Mediation analyses were conducted with Hayes' PROCESS macro modeling tool to assess self-control skills as the mediator of the relationships between perceived stress and each overeating pattern based on the regression-based bootstrapping method, adjusting for potential covariates. Results: The prevalence of overweight and obesity was approximately 18% in the current sample of adolescents. While controlling for age, sex, and standardized BMI, self-control skills mediated the effects of stress on emotional and external eating, but not on restrained eating; in addition, self-control skills partially mediated the relationship between perceived stress and an overall overeating tendency. Conclusion: Consistent with Rosenbaum's selfcontrol theory, self-control skills were found to mediate the relationship between perceived stress and emotional and external eating. This study highlights the importance of prevention treatments developed to impart adolescents with self-control skills, decrease their perceived stress, and consequently, reduce their overeating patterns during this intense developmental period.

Socio-Demographic, Self-Control, Bullying, Parenting, and Sleep as Proximal Factors Associated with Food Addiction among Adolescents

“…The association between FA symptoms and self-control reported in this study is consistent with the findings of recent studies, suggesting that self-control may be a contributing factor to unhealthy eating behaviours, including FA [17,23,62]. A study by Luo et al (2022), which comprised a cohort of college students, found a significant negative correlation between self-control and FA [63], while other studies of adult populations with FA have reported similar findings of reduced self-control [64,65].…”