Emotional Eating Is Associated with T2DM in an Urban Turkish Population: A Pilot Study Utilizing Social Media

Lifestyle behaviors and their potential effects on diabetes are being investigated for optimal diabetes management. In patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), the necessary dietary modifications extend to psychological components for consideration. This study aimed to determine the eating behavior of T2DM patients with different sociodemographic characteristics in an urban Turkish population. The Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire (DEBQ) was distributed via social media and a smartphone application to 108 T2DM patients, 58 males and 50 females, age 26–40 years (20 individuals, 18.6%) and over 40 years (88 individuals, 81.4 %). Basic component factor analysis varimax rotation was used for the item-total correlation coefficient. The 26–40 years age group exhibited high correlation for both restrained and emotional eating behavior (r > 0.8), while participants over 40 years displayed medium correlation for restrained eating and high correlation for emotional eating (r = 0.6–0.8). Compared to married and single participants, participants with “other” marital status showed significant correlation with all eating behavior categories (r > 0.8). Married participants were less correlated with all categories compared to single participants. Participants with lower education levels exhibited high correlation (r > 0.8) for all forms of eating, more so compared to those with higher levels of education attained. Overweight patients demonstrated moderately high (r = 0.4–0.6) restrictive eating correlation, while normal weight and obese patients exhibited higher correlation (r = 0.6–0.8) for emotional and restrained eating compared to overweight patients. Regardless of demographic factors, when all participants were combined, the strongest correlation was found to be with emotional eating compared to other types of eating.