Eating behaviour
Restrictive eating and overeating were assessed with the question12: “Which of the following best describes you?” and participants were asked to select one of the following four options: “It’s easy for me to eat about the amount I need to”; “I quite often eat more than I actually need”; “I often try to restrict my eating”, and “At times, I’m on a strict diet, at others I overeat”. Following the original publication12, we named these eating styles as normal eating, overeating, restrictive eating, alternating restrictive/overeating, respectively, and used normal eating as reference category in the statistical analyses.
A 12-item questionnaire12 was used to assess the different eating styles. Snacking behaviour was assessed using five items: “During mealtimes I eat sufficiently – I don’t need to snack between meals.”, “My meals are often replaced by snacks.”, “My food consumption is highest in the evening.”, “I graze throughout the evening.” and “While I am eating, I watch TV, etc.”.Health-conscious eating was assessed using three items: “I attempt to maintain healthy eating patterns.”, “I avoid fatty foods.” and “I avoid calories.”. Emotional eating was assessed using two items: “I reward myself often with good food.” and “I console myself by eating or drinking.”. Externally cued eatingwas assessed using one item: “My eating is triggered by seeing food, food advertisements, etc.”. Night eating was assessed using one item: “I wake up to eat at night.”, however, this eating style was not included in the analysis of current study, since similar to earlier findings12, it emerged rarely among the participants. For each item, participating women were asked to choose one of the four options that best describes their overall eating style: usually, often, sometimes, seldom. Responses were dichotomized by combining usually/often and sometimes/seldom.