Mojtaba Habibi Asgarabad

Background: Emotional eating is harmful to health and is highly prevalent in obese women. Hence, an awareness of factors underlying emotional eating is important for weight management and maintaining women’s health. Research evidence indicates that several factors contribute to emotional eating behavior. The present study aimed to explore obese young Iranian women’s lived experiences of social and linguistic factors shaping emotional eating behavior. Methods: This qualitative and hermeneutic phenomenological study was conducted on 17 young women living in Kermanshah or Karaj, Iran who experienced emotional eating and had a body mass index (BMI) of 30 and higher. The participants were selected using purposive sampling with maximum variation in terms of demographic characteristics. The data were collected through in-depth individual and face-to-face interviews and analyzed using Dickelman et al’s seven-step phenomenological approach. Results: The data analysis revealed that social and linguistic factors underlying emotional eating behavior can be explained by two themes including social influence and linguistic culture. Social influence further accounted for compensating for the stigma of thinness, relieving the stigma of obesity, group conformity, and following taboos to cope with sexual and emotional desires. In addition, linguistic culture was explained by two subthemes including associating grieving with eating and the metaphor of swallowing anger. Conclusion: Following the findings of the study, psychotherapy interventions can be planned to address emotional eating and weight management with a focus on the role of social influence and the effects of spoken language in the development of emotional eating behavior.

Background and Objective People with fibromyalgia (FM) often report having difficulty with emotional identification and expression, and this “alexithymia” may contribute to their pain and other symptoms. Multiple studies have assessed alexithymia in FM, and we systematically reviewed and meta‐analyzed this literature to: (a) describe the prevalence of alexithymia in people with FM; (b) compare the level of alexithymia in FM to both healthy controls and controls with other pain conditions; and (c) determine the association of alexithymia to pain intensity, depression, and anxiety in people with FM. Databases and Data Treatment Following PRISMA guidelines, we searched multiple databases (Scopus, PubMed/MEDLINE, Embase, Web of Science, PsycINFO and Google Scholar) from inception to May 31, 2022. Study quality was assessed with The Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) tools for cross‐sectional studies, and STATA:17 was used for meta‐analysis. A total of 32 studies met eligibility criteria and were included in meta‐analyses. Results The prevalence of alexithymia in FM averaged 48%. People with FM had substantially higher alexithymia than healthy controls (SMD = 1.00; 95% CI: 0.79 to 1.22), as well people with other pain‐related conditions (SMD = 0.35, 95% CI = 0.04 to 0.65), particularly rheumatoid arthritis (SMD = 0.49; 95% CI: 0.08–0.91). Alexithymia was positively associated with pain intensity ( r = 0.24), anxiety ( r = 0.50), and depression ( r = 0.41) among people with FM. Conclusions Due to the high level of alexithymia in people with FM and the positive relationship of alexithymia with pain and psychological distress, interventions to improve emotional awareness, expression, and processing in FM are recommended.