Effects of emotional eating and short sleep duration on weight gain in female employees.

Abstract

To investigate whether there is an interaction between emotional eating and sleep duration on weight change and whether this effect is stronger in women. One-year follow-up study. Banking environment. 553 women and 911 men. 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. 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.