Guzman Stephanie, Melara Robert D
City College of New York, New York, New York, USA.
J Am Coll Health. 2025 Apr;73(4):1603-1611. doi: 10.1080/07448481.2024.2337009. Epub 2024 Apr 5.
The outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic has been linked with caloric overeating and weight gain. We employed a mediation analysis to determine whether pandemic-associated overeating was a direct effect of Covid-19-related anxiety (affect regulation theory) or mediated by a coping mechanism of escape eating (escape theory). A diverse pool of college students participated in a repeated cross-sectional study during three separate waves: May 2021 (wave 1, = 349), December 2021 (wave 2, = 253), and March 2022 (wave 3, = 132). The results revealed a significant indirect effect of Covid-19-related anxiety on high-caloric overeating mediated by escape eating, but no direct path between Covid-19-related anxiety and caloric overeating. Analysis of racial/ethnic status uncovered significantly greater Covid-weight gain in Hispanic participants compared with White, Black, and Asian participants. Our results suggest that Covid-19 weight gain is a byproduct of a mediated escape mechanism differentially affecting racial/ethnic groups.
新冠疫情的爆发与热量摄入过多和体重增加有关。我们采用中介分析来确定与疫情相关的暴饮暴食是新冠疫情相关焦虑的直接影响（情感调节理论），还是由逃避性进食的应对机制介导（逃避理论）。一群不同的大学生在三个不同阶段参与了一项重复横断面研究：2021年5月（第1波，n = 349）、2021年12月（第2波，n = 253）和2022年3月（第3波，n = 132）。结果显示，新冠疫情相关焦虑通过逃避性进食介导对高热量暴饮暴食有显著的间接影响，但新冠疫情相关焦虑与热量摄入过多之间没有直接路径。对种族/族裔状况的分析发现，与白人、黑人和亚洲参与者相比，西班牙裔参与者的新冠疫情导致的体重增加显著更多。我们的结果表明，新冠疫情导致的体重增加是一种介导逃避机制的副产品，对不同种族/族裔群体有不同影响。
