Thesis Title: Food Addiction, Eating Motivation, Dietary Knowledge and Eating Patterns in Young Adults
Author: Palvisha Iqbal
Supervisor: Afifa Anjum
Year: 2017
Degree: BS
Department: Institute of Applied Psychology
University: Punjab University, Lahore, Pakistan
Corresponding Address: Department of Applied Psychology, University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan. Email: chairperson@appsy.pu.edu.pk, Phone: 92-42-9231245
Abstract
A correlational study was conducted to investigate the relationship among eating patterns, food addiction, eating motivation and dietary knowledge in young adults (M age = 19.73; SD = 1.41). It was hypothesized that food addiction and eating motivation are likely to predict eating patterns. Furthermore, it was also hypothesized that dietary knowledge is likely to moderate the relationship among food addiction, eating motivation and eating patterns. Yale Food Addiction Scale (Gearhardt, Corbin & Brownell, 2009) was used to assess food addiction, Eating Habits Questionnaire (Barbara, 2001) was used to assess eating motivation, Food Acceptance and Action Questionnaire (Juarascio, Forman, Timko, Butryn and Goodwin, 2011) and General Nutritional Knowledge Questionnaire (Paramenter& Wardle, 1999) was used to assess dietary knowledge and Eating Pattern Questionnaire (Kushner, 2003) was used to assess healthy or unhealthy eating patterns. Pearson Product Moment Correlation analysis was run to assess the relationships among all study variables. Multiple Hierarchical Regression analysis was run to find associations among dietary knowledge, eating motivation and eating patterns. Results revealed that eating motivation is a predictor of unhealthy eating patterns and dietary knowledge moderates the relationship between eating motivation and eating patterns such that higher dietary knowledge with higher eating motivation leads to healthy eating patterns. This study will help in understanding and promotion of healthy eating patterns. It suggests provision of dietary knowledge as an intervention to improve eating patterns.
Keywords:
Eating patterns, food addiction, eating motivation, dietary knowledge.
