A quantitative study on emotional appetite, mindful eating, and risky behaviors in male substance use disorder patients

ABSTRACT

Background and Objective

To evaluate the emotional appetite, eating awareness and risky behaviors of patients with substance use disorder.

Method

A total of 292 individuals were enrolled in this study; 142 individuals with a substance use disorder and 150 healthy individuals. Our sample was male. The Mindful Eating Questionnaire (MEQ), Emotional Appetite Questionnaire (EAQ) and Risky Behaviors Scale (RBS) were used. p < .05 was considered statistically significant.

Results

The results showed that the levels of smoking, emotional appetite, irregular eating habits, school dropout, antisocial behaviors and substance use increased in individuals with a substance use disorder (p < .05). In contrast, there was no significant difference in disinhibition, focus, eating control, eating discipline, mindfulness and interference values related to eating awareness (p > .05).

Conclusions

This study highlights the effects of substance use disorders on emotional eating and risk behaviors, but not mindful eating. However, more studies are needed.

KEYWORDS:

• Substance abuse
• eating awareness
• emotional appetite
• risky behaviors

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/14659891.2024.2374795.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.