Alexithymia and Obesity/Overweight
In agreement with previous studies (18)(32), our results showed that
adolescents with obesity or overweight were more alexithymic.
Obese/overweight adolescents who are more alexithymic had more emotional
eating which was prominent in obese and overweight adolescents. These
results was consistent with psychosomatic theory (1). The positive
association between alexithymia and emotional eating shows that
identification and verbalization of emotions may help to reduce acting
outs such as overeating. Although alexithymia levels higher in obese and
overweight adolescents, in regression analysis it was shown that
alexithymia is not a predictor of obesity or overweight. Because the
potential prediction relationship was not examined in previous studies,
this result is a unique contribution to the literature. Furthermore,
unlike previous studies in the literature (18)(32), in our study,
depression/anxiety scores was evaluated and participants with clinical
level symptoms of depression/anxiety were excluded. Therefore, the
results are more specific to obesity/overweight. It can be concluded
that our findings support the existence and importance of emotional and
psychological factors of obesity.