Is Anger an Emotional State Related to Overweight and Obesity in Adult Women?<br>—Affective States and Obesity

Aim: To test whether the anger dimension of Food Craving Behavior (FCB) differs across WHO BMI categories in adult women (World Health Organization, 2000), and to summarize patterns for the remaining FCB dimensions and the global score. Design: Cross-sectional study of adult women (N = 217). BMI was classified per WHO criteria (World Health Organization, 2000) into normal weight (n = 97), overweight (n = 82), and obesity (n = 38). A validated multidimensional FCB questionnaire yielded a global score and five dimensions (anxiety-stress, depression, leisure, anger, and psychological reactance). Methods: One-way ANOVAs compared FCB outcomes across BMI categories. Multiple testing across the five dimension-level ANOVAs was controlled using Holm (primary) and Benjamini-Hochberg FDR (sensitivity) corrections. Tukey HSD was applied only to dimensions remaining significant after correction. Results: Anger differed significantly across BMI groups, with means (±SD) of 6.71 ± 2.19 (normal), 8.20 ± 2.57 (overweight), and 7.95 ± 2.85 (obesity), F (2, 214) = 8.87, p = 0.000199, η2 = 0.077; the effect remained significant after Holm/FDR correction. Other dimensions were not significant (all adjusted p > 0.05). The global FCB score showed a nonsignificant trend F (2, 214) = 2.35, p = 0.098. Conclusions: Among FCB dimensions, anger is the only domain that differs across WHO BMI categories higher in overweight and obesity than in normal weight-highlighting the relevance of affective processes in weight management for adult women.