September 2020

Comparison of smartphone addiction and food addiction in patients admitted for weight loss

Comparison of food addiction and smartphone addiction

Selma Pekgör, Mehmet Ali Eryılmaz

Department of Family Medicine, University of Health Science, Konya Training and Research Hospital, Konya, Turkey

Abstract

Aim: This study aims to compare smartphone addiction and food addiction in patients admitted for weight loss. Materials and Methods: The study was conducted with the participation of 113 volunteers who were admitted to the obesity outpatient clinic of our hospital between January 2017 and January 2018. The participants of the study were given a sociodemographic characteristics form, the Yale food addiction questionnaire, and the smartphone addiction scale. The physical examination and anthropometric measurements (age, gender, height, weight, waist circumference, hip circumference, blood pressure) of all patients were performed by the researcher. SPSS 22 package program was used for the statistical analysis of the data. A p-value of <0.05 was considered significant.

Results: The median age of the participants, 95 of whom were female and 18 were male, was 34,5 (45,0-31,0) years. Among the participants, 17.7% had smartphone addiction and 33.6% had food addiction. The rate of food addiction was 50.0% in the group with smartphone addiction, while it was 30.1% in the group without smartphone addiction (p> 0.05), and there was a positive correlation between the smartphone addiction score and the food addiction score (r; 0.207 p = 0.033). While the mean age of the group with smartphone addiction was lower (28.5 years vs. 34.0 years) (p = 0.013), the height, weight, BMI, waist circumference, hip circum- ference, systolic and diastolic blood pressure parameters were similar to those without smartphone addiction (p> 0.05) (Table 2). The age, height, weight, BMI, waist circumference, hip circumference, systolic and diastolic blood pressure parameters of the groups with and without food addiction were similar (p> 0.05).

Discussion: Overweight and obese people with smartphone addiction exhibited negative eating behaviors. Ef- fective nutrition education programs and a national support policy are required to correct the unhealthy eating behaviors of obese people caused by smartphone use.

Keywords

Smartphone addiction; Food addiction; Obesity

Corresponding Author: Selma Pekgör, Ayanbey Neighborhood, Yeni Meram Street, University of Health Science, Konya Training and Research Hospital, Department of Family Medicine, 42030, Konya, Turkey
P: +90 3322210000/1803 • F.: +90 3322210000 • E-Mail: selmapekgor@outlook.com • Corresponding Author ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9907-1842

How to cite this article: Selma Pekgör, Mehmet Ali Eryılmaz. Comparison of smartphone addiction and food addiction in patients admitted for weight loss. Eu Clin Anal Med 2020; 8(3): 15-20