Abstract
Background
Stress affects health-related quality of life through several pathways, including
physiological processes and health behaviors. There is always a relationship between
stress (the stimulus) and coping (the response). The relationship between snacking
and snackers’ diet quality and stress coping is a topic overlooked in research.
Objective
The study was primarily designed to determine whether energy provided by snacks and
diet quality were associated with coping behaviors to manage stress.
Design
We analyzed a baseline cohort of the Healthy Aging in Neighborhoods of Diversity across
the Life Span study (2004 to 2009).
Participants
The sample was composed of 2,177 socioeconomically diverse African-American and white
adults who resided in Baltimore, MD.
Main outcome measures
Energy from snacks was calculated from 2 days of 24-hour dietary recalls collected
using the US Department of Agriculture’s Automated Multiple Pass Method. Snack occasions
were self-reported as distinct eating occasions. Diet quality was evaluated by the
Healthy Eating Index-2010.
Statistical analyses performed
Multiple regression analyses were used to determine whether coping factors were associated
with either energy provided by snacks or Healthy Eating Index-2010, adjusting for
age, sex, race, socioeconomic status, education, literacy, and perceived stress. Coping
was measured by the Brief COPE Inventory with instrument variables categorized into
three factors: problem-focused coping, emotion-focused coping, and use of support.
Perceived stress was measured with the 4-item Perceived Stress Scale.
Results
Adjusting for perceived stress and selected demographic characteristics, emotion-focused
coping strategies were associated with greater energy intakes from snacks (P=0.020), and use of coping strategies involving support was positively associated
with better diet quality (P=0.009).
Conclusions
Energy contributed by snacks and diet quality were affected by the strategy that an
individual used to cope with stress. The findings suggest that health professionals
working with individuals seeking guidance to modify their eating practices should
assess a person’s coping strategies to manage stress.
Keywords
To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
Purchase one-time access:
Academic & Personal: 24 hour online accessCorporate R&D Professionals: 24 hour online accessOne-time access price info
- For academic or personal research use, select 'Academic and Personal'
- For corporate R&D use, select 'Corporate R&D Professionals'
Subscribe:
Subscribe to Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and DieteticsAlready a print subscriber? Claim online access
Already an online subscriber? Sign in
Register: Create an account
Institutional Access: Sign in to ScienceDirect
References
- Psychological and metabolic stress: A recipe for accelerated cellular aging?.Hormones (Athens). 2009; 8: 7-22
- Are stress eaters at risk for the metabolic syndrome?.Ann NY Acad Sci. 2004; 1032: 208-210
- Changes in food intake in response to stress in men and women: Psychological factors.Appetite. 1997; 28: 7-18
- Longitudinal association between child stress and lifestyle.Health Psychol. 2015; 34: 40-50
- Relationship between stress, eating behavior, and obesity.Nutrition. 2007; 23: 887-894
- Perceived effects of stress on food choice.Physiol Behav. 1999; 66: 511-515
- Relationship between perceived stress and dietary and activity patterns in older adults participating in the Boston Puerto Rican Health Study.Appetite. 2011; 56: 194-204
- Effects of daily hassles and eating style on eating behavior.Health Psychol. 2008; 27: S20-S31
- Chronic stress increases vulnerability to diet-related abdominal fat, oxidative stress, and metabolic risk.Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2014; 46: 14-22
- What is eating you? Stress and the dive to eat.Appetite. 2012; 58: 717-721
- Comfort food is comforting to the most stressed: Evidence of the chronic stress response network in high stress women.Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2011; 39: 1513-1519
- Perceived stress and eating behaviors in a community-based sample of African Americans.Eat Behav. 2008; 9: 137-142
- Stress, Appraisal and Coping.Springer, New York, NY1984
- You want to measure coping but your protocol’s too long: Consider the brief cope.Int J Behav Med. 1997; 4: 92-100
- Encyclopedia of Behavioral Medicine.Springer, New York2013
- Healthy aging in neighborhoods of diversity across the life span (HANDLS): Overcoming barriers to implementing a longitudinal epidemiologic, urban study of health, race, and socioeconomic status.Ethn Dis. 2010; 20: 267-275
- Dietary patterns and sarcopenia in an urban African American and white population in the United States.J Nutr Gerontol Geriatr. 2013; 32: 291-316
- The US Department of Agriculture automated multiple-pass method reduces bias in the collection of energy intakes.Am J Clin Nutr. 2008; 88: 324-332
Sebastian RS, Enns CW, Goldman JD. Snacking patterns of US adults: What We Eat In America-NHANES 2007-2008. Dietary Data Brief 4. https://www.ars.usda.gov/ARSUserFiles/80400530/pdf/DBrief/4_adult_snacking_0708.pdf. Published 2011. Accessed January 10, 2017.
Agricultural Research Service, Food Surveys Research Group. USDA Food and Nutrient Database for Dietary Studies, 3.0. http://www.ars.usda.gov/Services/docs.htm?docid=12068. Published 2008. Accessed July 20, 2016.
- The impact of conventional dietary intakes data coding methods on snacks typically consumed by socioeconomically diverse African American and White urban population: A comparison of coding methods.Procedia Food Sci. 2015; 4: 94-103
- Update of the Healthy Eating Index: HEI-2010.J Acad Nutr Diet. 2013; 113: 569-580
National Cancer Institute. HEI tools for researchers. http://epi.grants.cancer.gov/hei/tools.html. Published 2014. Revised May 10, 2016. Accessed July 20, 2016.
National Institute on Aging. Healthy Eating Index 2010 calculation. https://handls.nih.gov/06Coll-w01HEI.htm. Published 2013. Accessed July 20, 2016.
- A global measure of perceived stress.J Health Soc Behav. 1983; 24: 385-396
- The relationship between quality of life and coping strategies of adults with celiac disease adhering to a gluten-free diet.Gastroenterol Nurs. 2011; 34: 460-468
- The Wide Range Achievement Test.3rd ed. Wide Range, Inc, Wilmington, DE1993
- Literacy and health outcomes. A systematic review of the literature.J Gen Intern Med. 2004; 19: 1228-1239
- Literacy contributes to greater higher diet quality in a socioeconomically diverse urban prospective cohort.Top Clin Nutr. 2016; 31: 47-58
SAS [computer program]. Version 9.3. Cary, NC: SAS Institute; 2010.
- A power primer.Psychol Bull. 1992; 112: 155-159
- Snacking behavior among elementary and junior high school students and its relationship to stress-coping.Nihon Koshu Eisei Zasshi. 2000; 47: 8-19
- It’s my party and I eat if I want to. Reasons for unhealthy snacking.Appetite. 2015; 84: 20-27
- A new model of the role of psychological and emotional distress in promoting obesity: Conceptual review with implications for treatment and prevention.Obesity Rev. 2014; 15: 769-779
- Exploring the relationship between coping strategies and binge eating in nonclinical adolescents.Eur Eat Disorders Rev. 2012; 20: e63-e69
- Differences of socio-psychology, eating behavior, diet quality and quality of life in South Korean women according to their weight status.Clin Nutr Res. 2016; 5: 161-171
- Snacking patterns, diet quality and cardiovascular risk factors in adults.BMC Public Health. 2014; 99: 1525-1542
- Healthy snacking recommendation: One size does not fit all.Physiol Behav. 2014; 134: 32-37
US Department of Agriculture. Data tables. What We Eat in America, NHANES 2007-2008. http://www.ars.usda.gov/News/docs.htm?docid=18349. Published August 2010. Revised February 11, 2015. Accessed July 20, 2016.
- Understanding the influence of the snack definition on the association between snacking and obesity: A review.Int J Food Sci Nutr. 2011; 62: 270-275
- Associations between meal and snack frequency and diet quality in US adults: National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2003-2012.J Acad Nutr Diet. 2016; 116: 1101-1113
- Effectiveness of the US Department of Agriculture 5-step multiple-pass method in assessing food intake in obese and nonobese women.Am J Clin Nutr. 2003; 77: 1171-1178
- HANDLS Generalizability, 2010 and HANDLS Principle Cities Clusters Analysis.National Institutes on Aging, Baltimore, MD2011
Biography
M. Fanelli Kuczmarski is a professor, Department of Behavioral Health and Nutrition, University of Delaware, Newark.
Biography
N. Cotugna is a professor, Department of Behavioral Health and Nutrition, University of Delaware, Newark.
Biography
E. L. Adams is a research nutritionist, Department of Behavioral Health and Nutrition, University of Delaware, Newark.
Biography
R. T. Pohlig is a biostatistician, College of Health Sciences, University of Delaware, Newark.
Biography
M. A. Beydoun is a staff scientist and epidemiologist, Laboratory of Epidemiology and Population Sciences, National Institute on Aging, National Institutes of Health, Baltimore, MD.
Biography
M. K. Evans is deputy scientific director and chief of health disparities research section, Laboratory of Epidemiology and Population Sciences, National Institute on Aging, National Institutes of Health, Baltimore, MD.
Biography
A. B. Zonderman is a senior investigator and psychologist, Laboratory of Epidemiology and Population Sciences, National Institute on Aging, National Institutes of Health, Baltimore, MD.
Article info
Publication history
Published online: March 29, 2017
Accepted:
February 7,
2017
Received:
August 4,
2016
Footnotes
STATEMENT OF POTENTIAL CONFLICT OF INTEREST No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
FUNDING/SUPPORT This work is supported by the Intramural Research Program, National Institute on Aging, National Institutes of Health, grant Z01-AG000194.
Identification
Copyright
© 2017 by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.
