Abstract

BORGES, Karina Morais; DOS SANTOS FIGUEIREDO, Francisco Winter  and  SOUTO, Ricardo Peres do. Night eating syndrome and emotional states in university students. J. Hum. Growth Dev. [online]. 2017, vol.27, n.3, pp. 132-139. ISSN 0104-1282.  http://dx.doi.org/10.7322/jhgd.141277.

INTRODUCTION: University students are exposed to many factors related to Night Eating Syndrome (NES), an eating disorder that may be associated with obesity. OBJECTIVE: To determine the prevalence of NES among students from a Brazilian university and evaluate the association of the syndrome behaviours with emotional. biological and environmental factors. METHODS: Cross-sectional study with 200 students from a private higher education institution located in the city of Juazeiro do Norte. Ceará. Brazil. NES was evaluated using the Night Eating Questionnaire (NEQ). considering the NEQ score ≥ 25 as the cut-off value for indication of the syndrome. Depression. anxiety. and stress symptoms were assessed using the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS-21) questionnaire. Additional information was collected about the participants (gender. age. weight and height). the academic status (enrolled course. study period and year) and the employment status (whether the participant worked at least 4h daily in addition to studying. RESULTS: 30 participants (15%) presented NEQ score ≥ 25. indicative of NES. There was no association between the NEQ score and the variables: gender, nutritional status, work, enrolled course. study period and academic year. There was an association between NEQ score and severity of depression (p=0.0001). anxiety (p=0.0001) and stress (p=0.0218). CONCLUSION: Evidence of a high prevalence of NES was found among Brazilian university students and an association between the behaviours of the syndrome with depressive. anxiety and stress symptoms was found.

Keywords : feeding and eating disorders; students; depression; anxiety; psychological stress.

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