{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,9]],"date-time":"2026-09-09T05:09:45Z","timestamp":1788930585628,"version":"build-2803163510"},"reference-count":60,"publisher":"Frontiers Media SA","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,9]],"date-time":"2026-09-09T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1788912000000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"Princeton University\u2019s Department of Psychology, Global Health Program, and Office of Undergraduate Research"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["frontiersin.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Front. Public Health"],"abstract":"<jats:p>\n                    Food addiction and emotional eating are two eating-related constructs that have been linked to obesity and poor mental health, but the extent to which they reliably co-occur across different cultural contexts is less clear. Given that sociocultural norms and food environments differ between countries, this study examined whether food addiction and emotional eating are associated in undergraduate samples from the United States (\n                    <jats:italic>n<\/jats:italic>\n                    \u202f=\u202f110) and South Korea (\n                    <jats:italic>n<\/jats:italic>\n                    \u202f=\u202f141), and whether scores differ across key demographic subgroups within each country. Using a cross-sectional design, food addiction was assessed with the Yale Food Addiction Scale 2.0 (YFAS 2.0), and emotional eating was assessed with the Emotional Eating Scale\u2013II (EES-II). Consistent with the study\u2019s central hypothesis, food addiction and emotional eating were strongly and positively correlated in both samples (South Korea\n                    <jats:italic>r<\/jats:italic>\n                    \u202f=\u202f0.74; United States\n                    <jats:italic>r<\/jats:italic>\n                    \u202f=\u202f0.53; both\n                    <jats:italic>p<\/jats:italic>\n                    \u202f&amp;lt;\u202f0.001), and this association was significantly stronger in the South Korean sample (Fisher\u2019s\n                    <jats:italic>z<\/jats:italic>\n                    \u202f=\u202f2.82,\n                    <jats:italic>p<\/jats:italic>\n                    \u202f=\u202f0.005). In a hierarchical regression, emotional eating remained a robust predictor of food addiction symptoms after adjusting for country, age, gender, and sexual orientation (\u0394\n                    <jats:italic>R<\/jats:italic>\n                    <jats:sup>2<\/jats:sup>\n                    \u202f=\u202f0.25,\n                    <jats:italic>p<\/jats:italic>\n                    \u202f&amp;lt;\u202f0.001). Additionally, cisgender women reported higher emotional eating than cisgender men overall (\n                    <jats:italic>p<\/jats:italic>\n                    \u202f=\u202f0.007), while gender differences in food addiction symptoms were not statistically significant (\n                    <jats:italic>p<\/jats:italic>\n                    \u202f=\u202f0.069). Overall, these findings indicate pronounced cross-cultural differences in both food addiction symptoms and emotional eating, suggesting that sociocultural factors may shape how these eating-related behaviors are expressed, highlighting the importance of culturally informed strategies to address emotional regulation in increasingly obesogenic food environments worldwide.\n                  <\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3389\/fpubh.2026.1890961","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,9]],"date-time":"2026-09-09T04:44:58Z","timestamp":1788929098000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Sociocultural considerations in food addiction and emotional eating: comparative evidence from college students in the United States and South Korea"],"prefix":"10.3389","volume":"14","author":[{"given":"Aidan","family":"Mahoney","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Psychology, Princeton University","place":["Princeton, NJ, United States"]},{"name":"Interdisciplinary Affective Science Lab, Department of Psychology, Northeastern University","place":["Boston, MA, United States"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Susan","family":"Sugarman","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Psychology, Princeton University","place":["Princeton, NJ, United States"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Kaylee","family":"Hough","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Neuroscience, Ichan School of Medicine at Mount Sinai","place":["New York, NY, United States"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Attila","family":"Szabo","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Faculty of Health and Sport Sciences, Sz\u00e9chenyi Istv\u00e1n University","place":["Gy\u0151r, Hungary"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Nicole","family":"Avena","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Psychology, Princeton University","place":["Princeton, NJ, United States"]},{"name":"Department of Neuroscience, Ichan School of Medicine at Mount Sinai","place":["New York, NY, United States"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1965","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,9]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref1","year":"2023"},{"key":"ref2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"936","DOI":"10.1017\/s1368980018003762","article-title":"Ultra-processed foods: what they are and how to identify them","volume":"22","author":"Monteiro","year":"2019","journal-title":"Public Health Nutr"},{"key":"ref3","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"5431","DOI":"10.1111\/dom.15922","article-title":"Ultra-processed foods cause weight gain and increased energy intake associated with reduced chewing frequency: a randomized, open-label, crossover study","volume":"26","author":"Hamano","year":"2024","journal-title":"Diabetes Obes Metab"},{"key":"ref4","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"478","DOI":"10.1038\/oby.2002.66","article-title":"Evidence that intermittent, excessive sugar intake causes endogenous opioid dependence","volume":"10","author":"Colantuoni","year":"2002","journal-title":"Obes Res"},{"key":"ref5","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"20","DOI":"10.1016\/j.neubiorev.2007.04.019","article-title":"Evidence for sugar addiction: behavioral and neurochemical effects of intermittent, excessive sugar intake","volume":"32","author":"Avena","year":"2008","journal-title":"Neurosci Biobehav Rev"},{"key":"ref6","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"359","DOI":"10.1016\/j.physbeh.2004.12.016","article-title":"Sugar-dependent rats show enhanced responding for sugar after abstinence: evidence of a sugar deprivation effect","volume":"84","author":"Avena","year":"2005","journal-title":"Physiol Behav"},{"key":"ref7","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"808","DOI":"10.1001\/archgenpsychiatry.2011.32","article-title":"Neural correlates of food addiction","volume":"68","author":"Gearhardt","year":"2011","journal-title":"Arch Gen Psychiatry"},{"key":"ref8","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"214","DOI":"10.1007\/s13679-024-00569-w","article-title":"Ultra-processed food addiction: a research update","volume":"13","author":"LaFata","year":"2024","journal-title":"Curr Obes Rep"},{"key":"ref9","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"e0117959","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pone.0117959","article-title":"Which foods may be addictive? 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