Adolescents' addictive phone use: associations with eating behaviors and adiposity
Open accessAbstract
Concerns have been raised about excessive or “addictive” phone use among adolescents, and the impact that addictive phone use (APU) can have on adolescent development and health. Most research on the physical health correlates of smartphone use has been limited to sleep health, whereas other outcomes, such as eating behaviors and obesity risk have not received as much attention. To address this gap in the literature, we examined the association between APU and emotion regulation difficulties, impulsivity, maladaptive eating behaviors, and adiposity in a sample of 111 adolescents. We found that APU is associated with greater emotion regulation difficulties, dysregulated eating, restrained eating, food addiction, and higher percent body fat. Further, we found that emotion regulation difficulties mediated the association between APU and dysregulated eating, restrained eating, and food addiction. Findings suggest that addictive phone use may confer increased risk for obesogenic eating behaviors and food addiction via challenges in regulating emotions.
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Excessive smartphone use is associated with unhealthy eating habits.
“Medical problems include sleep problems, reduced physical fitness, unhealthy eating habits, pain and migraines, reduced cognitive control and changes in the brain's gray matter volume.”
From Excessive Smartphone Use Is Associated With Health Problems in Adolescents and Young Adults (2021) · cites this paper as [21]
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Sorted by citations
Excessive Smartphone Use Is Associated With Health Problems in Adolescents and Young Adults
Wacks, Y., & Weinstein, A. M. (2021) · Frontiers in Psychiatry · doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2021.669042 · Cited by 424 · see citing works
“Emotion regulation difficulties, unregulated eating, restrained eating, food addiction, and higher percent body fat were associated with excessive smartphone use among adolescents (21).”
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- Authors
- Domoff, S. E., Sutherland, E. Q., Yokum, S., & Gearhardt, A. N.
- Affiliations
- Central Michigan University (US)
- University of Michigan (US)
- Oregon Research Institute (US)
- Corresponding author
- Gearhardt, Ashley N.
- Venue
- International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
- Publisher
- MDPI AG
- Published
- 2020-04-21
- Volume
- 17
- Issue
- 8
- Pages
- 2861
- ISSN
- 1660-4601 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC7216038
- OpenAlex
- W3018663012
- Cited by
- 83
- References
- 6
- Citations by year
- 2026: 12 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 9 · 2023: 12 · 2022: 25 · 2021: 13 · 2020: 6
- FWCI
- 18.73
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- dx.doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (R01 DK102532)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Impact of Technology on Adolescents
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Eating Disorders and Behaviors
- Health Sciences › Nursing › Nutrition and Dietetics › Nutrition, Health and Food Behavior
- Keywords
- adolescents, smartphone use, dietary habits, adiposity, fat mass, emotional dysregulation, impulsivity, dysregulated eating, dietary restraint, food addiction, obesity risk, mediation
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Eating, Emotions, Feeding Behavior, Female, Humans, Male, Obesity, Surveys and Questionnaires, Telephone, Behavior, Addictive, Adiposity
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