Effects of Emotional Eating and Short Sleep Duration on Weight Gain in Female Employees

OBJECTIVE: To investigate whether there is an interaction between emotional eating and sleep duration on weight change and whether this effect is stronger in women. DESIGN: One-year follow-up study. SETTING: Banking environment. PARTICIPANTS: 553 women and 911 men. MEASUREMENTS AND RESULTS: Self-reported emotional eating and body mass index (BMI) at T1 were measured in 2008, and sleep duration and BMI at follow-up (T2) were measured in 2009. A significant emotional eating-sleep duration interaction on BMI change was found in women, but not in men. CONCLUSIONS: The finding that the highest weight gain was found in women who combined short sleep duration with high emotional eating-both of them are markers of (chronic) distress-suggests a possible role of poor psychological health and (chronic) stress in this relationship.