Early-life stress (ELS) refers to adverse experiences or challenging conditions that an individual encounters during their early developmental years, typically in childhood. These stressors can manifest in various forms, such as exposure to trauma, abuse, neglect, family conflicts, or other disruptive events.

Eating behavior encompasses food-related actions, from choice and portion size to meal timing. It’s influenced by physiological, psychological, social, and environmental factors, impacting our dietary habits and food-related decisions.

EMA is a measurement technique that allows for the assessment of factors within real-world settings (as opposed to in a laboratory) and the evaluation of variables of interest in near real-time. This provides the opportunity to study individuals in their everyday eating environments, capturing the experience of moods, behaviors, and events that occur in relation to dietary intake (Maugeri & Barchitta, 2019).

Economic accessibility refers to the ability of individuals or groups to afford goods, services, or resources necessary for a decent standard of living. It involves factors such as income levels, cost of living, transportation, and availability of social support systems that impact an individual’s ability to access resources and participate fully in society.

Efferent, or motor, nerve fibers carry signals from the central nervous system toward the peripheral nervous system, including the muscle nerves (Mathews et al., 2017).

An efferent system consists of neurons and neurotransmitters that transmit signals from the CNS to other body parts to cause an effect or action (Mathews et al., 2017). Efferent systems include the ANS and the HPA axis.

Efferent vagus nerves are the motor neurons that carry signals from the CNS to target organs, particularly the digestive system’s tissues, to cause an effect or action. Unlike the afferent vagus nerve, which carries sensory information from the gut to the brain, the efferent nerve controls digestive functions such as gut motility, secretion, and blood flow (Mikami et al., 2022).

Emotional eating is a behavior in which individuals eat in response to their emotions rather than to satisfy physical hunger. It often involves using food as a means of coping with or soothing emotional distress, such as stress, sadness, or anxiety.

Emotional resilience is the ability to adapt, bounce back, and maintain mental and emotional well-being in the face of adversity, stress, or challenging circumstances. It involves effectively coping with and recovering from emotional distress, enabling individuals to navigate life’s ups and downs with greater stability and mental strength.

The endocrine system is a complex network of glands and organs in the human body that produce and release hormones. These hormones are chemical messengers that regulate various physiological functions, including metabolism, growth and development, tissue function, sexual function, sleep, and mood.