Eating, mood, and gender in a noneating disorder population

Recently, eating in relation to emotions has been the focus of much research. The present study evaluates the role of mood, gender, and tendency for emotions to impact on eating (as measured by a revised form of the Emotional Eating Scale-II, EES II) within an analogue mood-related eating paradigm, e.g., Baucom & Aiken [J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 41 (1981) 577], with a nonclinical population. The results indicate that there is a complex relationship that exists between gender and mood. Males appeared to experience a reduction in the negative component of their overall mood after eating, while females appeared to be more emotionally responsive to eating overall. This effect is not dependent on tendency for emotions to impact on eating as measured by the EES II. This suggests that there is a need to examine the impact of mood on eating in both clinical and nonclinical populations as there appears to be important differences between the populations.