OBESITY AND EMOTIONAL AROUSAL AND CONTROL IN CHILDREN AGED 8 TO 11 YEARS

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to present the results obtained in the base of the opinion of 95 children from general schools of Sibiu city in Romania, collected during a survey regarding emotional reactivity (arousal) and regulatory capacity (control) in early adolescence. Data were stratified by BMI in order to analyze the relationship between obesity and emotional arousal and control in case of young adolescents. A 30-item self-reporting multidimensional instrument HIF (How I Feel) created by Walden, Harris & Carton in 2003 was used. The questionnaire items refer to five different emotions: happy, sad, excited, scared and mad. Significant differences between the three subgroups (normal weight, overweight and obese) were observed for the following questionnaire items: happy and excited from position emotions subscale; sad, mad from negative emotion subscale. In case of emotion control subscale no significant differences between subgroups have been identified althow higher values were observed in the case of overweight and obese (compared to normal weight) for almost all of the subscale items. The use of HIF instrument in conjunction with other measures could provide a more comprehensive assessment of emotional functioning and different disorders in children and adolescents.

Keywords

• Pediatric
• Emotional arousal
• Emotional control
• Overweight
• Obese