Investigation of the relationship between eating attitude and body composition of patients with anxiety disorders

Introduction: The aim of this study was to evaluate the relationship between eating attitude, body composition and disease severity in patientswith anxiety disorders.Methods: This is a cross-sectional case-control study conducted between January-March 2018 in Clinic of Psychiatry of Çanakkale Onsekiz MartUniversity Medical Faculty of Hospital. Beck depression scale (BDI), beck anxiety scale (BAI) and eating attitude test (EAT) were applied topatients diagnosed as anxiety disorder according to DSM-5 criteria and to healthy controls. Body compositions of all participants were measuredby Bioimpedance Analysis (BIA).Results: Twenty-five patients with anxiety disorders and 25 healthy controls were included in the study. The BDI and BAI scores of the participantsmeasured the severity of anxiety and depressive symptoms were statistically higher than the controls. (p <0.001). There were statistically significantpositive correlations between BDI and BAI, EAT and BMI (p = 0.029, r = 0.436; p = 0.001, r =.630, respectively). There was a statisticallysignificant positive correlation between EAT and BMI (p = 0.027, r = 0.441). There were no statistically significant differences between twogroups in terms of body fat ratios.Conclusions: Our study shows that patients with anxiety disorders should be evaluated for obesity and related factors and necessaryrecommendations should be made.