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
Body Mass Index (BMI) in order to analyse the relationship between obesity and emotional arousal
and control in case of young adolescents. A 30-item self-reporting multidimensional instrument How I
Feel - HIF 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
although 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.
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