ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Health and Nutrition
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1659974
Hedonic Hunger and Food Cravings: Understanding Their Role in Premenstrual Syndrome among Nursing Students
Provisionally accepted
- 1Ordu Universitesi, Ordu, Türkiye
- 2Recep Tayyip Erdoğan University, Rize, Türkiye
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Background: Premenstrual syndrome (PMS), characterized by physical, psychological, and behavioral symptoms occurring during the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle, affects more than 48% of women of reproductive age worldwide. The aim of the research is to examine the relationships between hedonic hunger, food cravings, and emotional eating in relation to PMS among Turkish female nursing students.Method: This cross-sectional and descriptive study was conducted on 207 female undergraduate nursing students. Data were obtained using survey and a face-to-face interview method. The questionnaire includes general information, anthropometric measurements, the Premenstrual Syndrome Scale (PMSS), the Power of Food Scale (PFS), the Food Craving Questionnaire-Trait (FCQ-T), and the Emotional Eater Questionnaire (EEQ). Data analysis was performed with IBM SPSS V26 software.Results: In total, 169 (81.6%) PMS(+) and 38 (18.4%) PMS(-) female students participated in the study. The mean age was 21.09 ± 2.41 years, and the mean body mass index was 23.3 ± 4.07 kg/m2. The PFS-Tr, FCQ-T and EEQ total scores was positively correlated with PMSS scores. The strongest predictor for hedonic hunger was food cravings, whereas hedonic hunger, PMS, and emotional eating were significant factors for food cravings. PMS was a problem experienced by most of the students. The results indicate that the presence of PMS is associated with increased hedonic hunger, food cravings, and emotional eating tendencies among university students.Conclusions: Raising awareness of PMS and conducting nutrition-related trainings for university students would help them get the knowledge and skills they need to manage its symptoms.
Keywords: emotional eating1, food cravings2, hedonic hunger3, nursing4, premenstrual syndrome5
Received: 04 Jul 2025; Accepted: 30 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Kocyigit, Gumusay and Demirel Ozbek. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Yağmur Demirel Ozbek, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan University, Rize, Türkiye
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