Relationship between academic stress, emotional intelligence and eating behavior in university students

Emotional intelligence refers to the group of capabilities that enable people to regulate mood and feelings, especially the perception of stress. Although the reasons are not fully understood, there is a link between stress, eating behavior, and emotional intelligence. Our objective was to relate emotional intelligence, academic stress, and eating behavior among Psychology and Biology students at the University of Panama. We determined the association between academic stress, clarity, attention, and emotional repair scores, as well as eating habits at the beginning and end of the semester.

Compared to psychology students, biology students feel more academic stress. Psychology students have greater emotional clarity and attentiveness. There is no association between perceived stress, emotional intelligence, and eating behavior. We recommend incorporating physiological variables and instruments that assess the concept of emotional eating.

This file includes the coding of the variables, as well as the scores obtained by each participant.