School of Health and Society, University of Salford, Manchester, UK.
Department of Psychology, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK.
Obesity (Silver Spring). 2021 Jan;29(1):143-149. doi: 10.1002/oby.23033. Epub 2020 Nov 1.
Food insecurity (a lack of stable access to nutritious food) is reliably associated with poor diet, malnutrition, and obesity; however, the underlying mechanisms are unclear. In this study, the hypothesis that these relations are explained by higher levels of distress, which are due to the experience of food insecurity, and unhealthy coping behaviors (eating high-calorie foods, drinking alcohol) was tested.
Adults from the United Kingdom (N = 604), who were recruited online and at food banks, completed questionnaire measures of household food insecurity, physical stress, psychological distress, eating to cope, drinking to cope, diet quality, and self-reported height and weight to calculate BMI.
Structural equation modeling was used to test the hypothesized relationships, including a multilevel structural model controlling for the effect of income. As predicted, food insecurity was indirectly associated with higher BMI via greater distress and eating to cope. Food insecurity was directly associated with poorer diet quality, but this relationship was not explained by distress and eating to cope CONCLUSIONS: Our data provide novel insight into the psychological experience of being food-insecure and how maladaptive coping mechanisms might play some role in the association between food insecurity, diet, and obesity.
食物不安全（稳定获得营养食物的机会不足）与不良饮食、营养不良和肥胖密切相关；然而，其潜在机制尚不清楚。本研究假设，这些关系可以通过更高水平的压力来解释，而这种压力是由于食物不安全的经历和不健康的应对行为（食用高热量食物、饮酒）引起的。
从英国（N=604）的在线和食品银行招募的成年人完成了家庭食物不安全、身体压力、心理困扰、应对性进食、应对性饮酒、饮食质量以及自我报告的身高和体重的问卷测量，以计算 BMI。
结构方程模型用于测试假设的关系，包括控制收入影响的多层次结构模型。正如预测的那样，通过更大的压力和应对性进食，食物不安全与更高的 BMI 呈间接相关。食物不安全与较差的饮食质量直接相关，但这种关系不能用压力和应对性进食来解释。
我们的数据为了解食物不安全的心理体验以及适应不良的应对机制如何在食物不安全、饮食和肥胖之间的关联中发挥作用提供了新的见解。
