The effect of bariatric surgery on mood, coping and emotional eating - Research findings
August 16, 2010
Claire Friedemann and Jane Ogden
University of Surrey
Background: Bariatric surgery is a procedure that is increasingly being used as a means of weight loss for people with obesity and refers to a group of surgical procedures that alter the structure of the stomach or the intestine to induce weight loss. It is generally recognised as a safe, very effective method of weight reduction but some previous studies have found that how the patient copes with life stress and their relationship to food can have a large impact on the weight loss they are able to achieve and how successful they are at maintaining this.
This study was run as part of a Master's Degree in Health Psychology at the University of Surrey and aimed to explore the impact of bariatric surgery on mood, coping and emotional eating and how these factors relate to weight loss.Method: A questionnaire was placed on the Weight Loss Surgery Information website and was completed by participants if they had undergone or were thinking of having bariatric surgery. A small sample also completed another questionnaire a few months later after they had had surgery.
Results: The study showed that surgery improved participants' mood, coping and emotional eating and that all participants lost weight. In particular, they reported an increase in both problem focused coping (e.g. coming up with a strategy about what to do) and emotion focused coping (e.g. getting comfort and understanding from someone) rather than avoidance (e.g. turning to work and other activities to take their minds off things) and stated how they ate less for emotional reasons and binged less after their operation. In addition, the less the participant ate in response to emotions after surgery the more weight they were able to lose.
Conclusion: Bariatric surgery leads to weight loss. Such weight loss is greater in those who reduce their emotional eating and bingeing, eat fewer unhealthy foods and replace emotional eating and avoidant coping with emotion focused coping or problem focused coping.
I would like to thank all those who took part in this study and WLSinfo for allowing me to advertise the questionnaire on their website, your help was very much appreciated.