Objectives: The aim of the study was to determine the role of emotional eating and body mass index (BMI) in the relationship between the desire to consume chocolate and avoiding social situations related to food and body exposure in women with normal weight.
Methods: The direct effect, the indirect effect, the buffer effect, and the moderated mediation model were tested. The study involved 311 women. The mean age was 25.56 years (SD = 8.99), and the BMI was 23.19 kg/m2(SD = 1.80). The Three-Factor Eating Questionnaire, the Attitude to Chocolate Questionnaire and the Body Image Avoidance Questionnaire were used in the study.
Results: The results show that asignificant weak positive relationships exist between: (1) emotional eating and BMI, (2) emotional eating, BMI and avoiding social situations related to food and body exposure, (3) avoiding social situations and the desire to eat chocolate. However, asignificant moderate positive correlation is observed in the relationship between emotional eating and the desire to consume chocolate. The relationship between body mass index and the desire to consume chocolate is insignificant. Emotional eating is also an important complete mediator of the relationship between avoiding social situations related to food and body exposure and the desire to consume chocolate. However, it does not moderate the relationship between these variables. With reference to the moderated mediation model, BMI at the statistically significant level interacts with the avoidance of situations related to food and body exposure and the proposed model proves to be significant.
Conclusions: Our results prove that emotional eating is significantly associated with chocolate consumption and avoiding situations related to eating and body exposure.
Keywords: attitudes towards chocolate; body image; emotional eating.