Determination of distress, emotional eating and internalized weight bias levels of Turkish pregnant women

Abstract

This study was conducted to determine the stress, emotional eating and weight bias levels of Turkish pregnant women. The study sample was composed of 210 pregnant women, who met the research inclusion criteria and admitted to the obstetrics and gynaecology outpatient clinics of Bingol Hospital for Obstetrics and Gynaecology. Research data were collected between December 2018 and June 2019, using face-to-face interview technique. Personal Information Form, Tilburg Pregnancy Distress Scale (TPDS), Internalised Weight Bias Scale (IWBS), and Emotional Eating sub-scale items of the Netherlands Eating Behaviour Questionnaire used to collect data. In our study, 47.9% of pregnant women were found to be overweight or obese according to the pre-pregnancy body mass index (BMI) average. Pregnant women experience a moderate level of stress, emotional eating and weight bias. It was found that there was a statistically significant relationship between the weight bias score averages and the emotional eating and stress score averages of the pregnant women (p