Burnout, Eating Behaviour Traits and Dietary Patterns

Purpose: The purpose of this research has been to investigate whether burnout and eating behaviour traitswere associated with food intake.Design/methodology/approach: Participants (n¼109) 78 per cent female, mean age 39 years, wererecruited from various occupations within a UK university to complete an on-line survey. Dietary habits weremeasured using Food Frequency Questionnaire (FFQ), burnout using the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI)and eating behaviour traits using the Three Factor Eating Questionnaire (TFEQ) R18.Findings: Principal component analyses of FFQ responses revealed four dietary patterns: fast/junk food(+chicken and low fruit/vegetables); meat/fish; dairy/grains; beans/nuts. Dietary patterns were examined usingmultiple regression analysis as outcome variables with age, gender, burnout and eating behaviour traits asexplanatory variables. More frequent consumption of “junk/fast food” was associated with lower TFEQ-CognitiveRestraint, higher TFEQ-Uncontrolled Eating (UE), lower MBI-Emotional Exhaustion and higherMBI-Depersonalisation. More frequent consumption of beans/nuts was associated with higher TFEQ-UE andhigher MBI-Emotional Exhaustion. Models for meat/fish and grains/dairy dietary patterns were not significant.Research limitations/implications: Burnout may need to be considered to reduce junk food consumptionin higher education employees. Causality between burnout, eating behaviour traits and food consumptionrequires further investigation on larger samples.Originality/value: This appears to be the first study to have explored associations between burnout,eating behaviour traits and dietary patterns