Self-Assessed Emotional Factors Contributing to Increased Weight in Presurgical Male Bariatric Patients

Abstract

Abstract

Background: One important part of the presurgical mental health evaluation for bariatric surgery is to assess what, if any, emotional factors may be related to a patient's eating behavior. In this way, appropriate biopsychosocial interventions may be designed to facilitate long-term maintenance of weight loss. The current investigation examined the role that negative emotional states might play in increased presurgical eating behavior in a sample of presurgical bariatric surgery patients. Methods: A sample of 100 male patients completed the Weight and Lifestyle Inventory as a component of a comprehensive psychological evaluation. This questionnaire contains six items that assess the degree of six negative emotional states. These data were examined to determine which negative emotional states were most frequently related to increased eating behavior. In addition, the frequency of reported multiple emotional contributors to eating was also examined. Results: Eating when bored received the highest scores, followed by eating when stressed, depressed, anxious, tired, and angry. A large segment (59%) of the sample indicated that emotional factors did not contribute a large amount to their increased weight, while on the other hand, a smaller segment (18%) could be identified as “emotional eaters.” Conclusion: To increase the likelihood of long-term maintenance of weight loss, a significant portion of this patient population may benefit from interventions targeted at overcoming boredom, reducing stress, and managing depression. In the presurgical evaluation, it is important to identify patients who are emotional eaters and to refer them for interventions at a time deemed clinically most appropriate. It was also observed that average scores for men in each of the six emotional states was comparably lower than the average scores for women found in a previous investigation.