Predicting Eating Behavior based on the Mental Health and Health Promoting Behaviors in Obese and Overweight Adolescent Girls
Keywords:
Eating Behavior, Mental Health, Health Promoting Behaviors, Adolescent Girls, Obese, OverweightAbstract
Objective: Obesity and overweight effect on the eating behaviors, especially during adolescence. Therefore, the aim of this study was predicting eating behavior based on the mental health and health promoting behaviors in obese and overweight adolescent girls.
Methods and Materials: The present research was cross-sectional from type of correlation. The population of this research was all obese and overweight girl students in the senior high school of Chalus county in the 2024-2025 academic years, which 200 people of them were selected as samples by purposive sampling method. The instruments of the present study were included a demographic information form, Dutch eating behavior questionnaire (Van Strien et al., 1986), mental health scale (Najarian & Davoodi, 2001) and health promoting lifestyle profile (Walker et al., 1995). The data of this research were analyzed with using the methods of Pearson correlation coefficients and multiple regression with enter model in SPSS-25 software.
Findings: The findings of this research showed that there was a positive and significant correlation between the score of mental health and eating behavior in obese and overweight adolescent girls and a negative and significant correlation between the score of health promoting behaviors and eating behavior in them (P<0.001). Also, the variables of mental health and health promoting behaviors significantly were able to predict 54 percent of changes in their eating behavior, which in this prediction the contributed of mental health was more than health promoting behaviors (P<0.001).
Conclusion: According to the aforementioned results, in order to reduce undesirable eating behavior through educational workshops can be used to improve mental health and health promoting behaviors in vulnerable groups, including obese and overweight adolescent girls.
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Copyright (c) 2025 Maryam Dorraj (Author); Khadijeh Hatamipour
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