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.