Author(s)

Katsumasa Momoi^1,2, Kumiko Ohara¹, Yoshimitsu Okita³, Tomoki Mase⁴, Chiemi Miyawaki⁵, Tomoko Fujitani¹, Harunobu Nakamura¹

¹Graduate School of Human Development and Environment, Kobe University, Kobe, Japan.
²Faculty of Health and Welfare, Tokushima Bunri University, Tokushima, Japan.
³Graduate School of Engineering, Shizuoka University, Hamamatsu, Japan.
⁴Faculty of Human Development and Education, Kyoto Women’s University, Kyoto, Japan.
⁵Department of Early Childhood Education, Heian Jogakuin (St. Agnes’) College, Kyoto, Japan.

The management of eating behavior plays an important role in health maintenance. In this study, we investigated the relationship between eating behavior and effortful control in female young adults. Participants completed the questionnaire measures of effortful control and eating behaviors and Stroop cognitive interference task. The results showed that restrained eating was positively correlated with activation control; emotional eating was negatively correlated with inhibitory control and attentional control; external eating was negatively correlated with inhibitory, activation, and attentional control. The scores for activation control and restrained eating were higher for participants with a low Stroop error rate than for those with a high Stroop error rate. These results indicate that restrained eating has a different association with effortful control than doing emotional and external eating.

Executive Function, Working Memory, Effortful Control, Eating Behavior

Momoi, K. , Ohara, K. , Okita, Y. , Mase, T. , Miyawaki, C. , Fujitani, T. and Nakamura, H. (2016) Relationship among Eating Behavior, Effortful Control, and Working Memory in Female Young Adults. Health, 8, 1187-1194. doi: 10.4236/health.2016.812122.