Eating Styles and General Health among Established Gym-Goers, Novice Gym-Goers, and Non-Exercising Young Adults

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21294068

Poonam Mukherjee (Department of Psychology, Tripura University, Tripura)

This study examined eating styles and their association with general health among established gym-goers, novice gym-goers, and non-exercising young adults in India. A cross-sectional comparative design was used with 132 participants aged 18-40 years (37 established gym goers, 39 novice gym goers, & 56 non-exercisers) recruited from Tripura by purposive sampling. Eating styles were assessed with the Three Factor Eating Questionnaire-18 (cognitive restraint, uncontrolled eating, emotional eating) developed by Karlsson et al. (2000) and general health with the RAND-36 Health Survey developed by Hays, Sherbourne, and Mazel (1993). Established gym goers reported higher cognitive restraint and lower uncontrolled and emotional eating than novice gym goers and non-exercisers. They also scored higher on several RAND-36 domains and on the total health score. Across the sample, uncontrolled eating correlated negatively with general health (r = -.28, p = .001) and significantly predicted lower RAND-36 total scores, whereas cognitive restraint and emotional eating were not significant predictors. Longer-term gym involvement was associated with more adaptive eating styles and better perceived general health, highlighting the need to address uncontrolled eating within physical activity-based health promotion for young adults