Eating when bored: Revision of the emotional eating scale with a focus on boredom

In this 2012 study, 139 undergraduates were questioned on their behaviors when experiencing various emotions and given the emotional-eating scale with six extra items to measure their boredom. The study’s goals were to determine whether boredom-related eating is a different construct from eating driven by other negative emotions and to compare the endorsement of these two types of eating. The most frequently endorsed item on the emotional eating scale was identified as “eating when bored.” Participants also reported eating in response to boredom most often on the open-ended items on the scale. Exploratory factor analysis indicated that boredom is in fact a separate construct from other negative emotions, suggesting that it should be thought of as a different dimension of emotional eating. [NPID: emotions, emotion regulation, emotional eating, boredom, negative emotions]

Year: 2012

Reference: Koball, A. M., Meers, M. R., Storfer-Isser, A., Domoff, S. E., & Musher-Eizenman, D. R. (2012). Eating when bored: revision of the emotional eating scale with a focus on boredom. Health psychology : official journal of the Division of Health Psychology, American Psychological Association, 31(4), 521–524. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0025893