Emotional eating behavior hinders body weight loss in women after Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery.

Objective: Successful weight loss and maintenance after Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB) may be related to eating behavior. The aim of this study was to assess the eating behavior domains that prevail in women during the RYGB postoperative period and their associations with surgery outcome.

Methods: This cross-sectional study investigated eating behavior in 95 women (47.3 ± 9.8 y old)  ≥ 2 y after Roux-en-Y gastric bypass. Patients were grouped according to surgery outcome: successful group (SG; n = 67), defined as having lost ≥ 50% of the preoperative excess weight loss (EWL), and an unsuccessful group (UG; n = 28). Mean postoperative time was 59.5 ± 21.2 mo (55.7 ± 19.9 in the SG and 68.6 ± 21.9 in the UG). The short version of the Three-Factor Eating Questionnaire was used to assess cognitive restraint, emotional eating, and uncontrolled eating behaviors. Multivariate analysis was used to investigate associations between eating behavior scores and EWL.

Results: The highest score in both groups was for the cognitive restraint domain, followed by emotional and uncontrolled eating. Emotional eating was negatively associated with percentage of EWL (β = -0.286; P = 0.033), regardless of age, educational attainment, and postoperative time.

Conclusion: The cognitive restraint domain was the main type of eating behavior observed, and patients with higher emotional eating score were at a higher risk for having insufficient weight loss after RYGB. These results indicate the relevance of monitoring emotional components during the long-term nutritional follow-up of bariatric patients to achieve better surgery outcomes.