Does mindful eating have a relationship with gender, body mass index and health promoting lifestyle?

Abstract

Objective: Present study, we aimed to examine the relationship between university students' mindful eating and health promoting lifestyle status with their gender and body mass index among students from a university sample in Turkey. Methods: This cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted 368 randomly selected undergraduate students in Fall 2018. Participants completed sociodemographic form, Mindful Eating (MEQ) and Health Promoting Lifestyle Profile II (HPLP-II) questionnaires that included questions related to their mindfulness, eating habits and control, disinhibition, nutritional knowledge etc. Weight and height of participants were measured. Results: In this study, 68.5% of the participants were male and 31.5% were female, the mean age was 21.29 +/- 1.77 years and BMI (kg / m(2)) was 21.92 +/- 2.99. Total score of MEQ was 3.25 +/- 0.37 and HPLP-II was 131.74 +/- 17.60. There was no statistically significant difference between mean MEQ and HPLP-II scores of males (3.29 +/- 0.37, 130.38 +/- 19.59) and females (3.23 +/- 0.38, 132.36 +/- 16.61) (p>0.05). Preobese-obese (POW) group was found to be having less MEQ scores than the other BMI classes (p=0.008). While the participant's age increased, BMI increased (r=0.144, p=0.006), and mindful eating decreased (p>0.05). A significant relationship was found between age, BMI both sub-factors of MEQ (disinhibition: r=-0.120, r=-0.294, eating control: r=-0.133, r=0.211, mindfulness: r=0.190, r=0.285, eating discipline: r=-0.122, r=0.226, conscious nutrition: r=0.153, r=0.128, and additionally for BMI, emotional eating: r=-0.158, interference: r=-0.139; p<0.05) and HPLP-II (age; spiritual growth: r=-0.211, health responsibility: r=0.125, stress management r=-0.110 and BMI; physical activity: r=0.192, nutrition: r=0.120, p<0.05). Emotional eating, nutrition and stress management had good correlation (p<0.05). There was strong relationship among MEQ and HPLP-II (p<0.000). Conclusion: Adolescence is an important stage of life to create lifelong lifestyle and eating habits. With age, body mass index, lifestyle and nutrition can be impaired. Health-promoting lifestyle and mindful eating can be related strongly. It is crucial to detect lifestyle choices and eating habits than giving education to have a healthy, qualified and not-disordered eating life.