Association between emotional eating and body image: A scoping review

The association between emotional eating and body image constructs has been increasingly recognized as relevant to adults' physical and mental health. This scoping review mapped and synthesized the existing literature following the PRISMA-ScR framework. Comprehensive searches across PsycINFO, PubMed, JSTOR, EBSCO, Web of Science, and Scopus identified 33 eligible studies published between 2015 and 2025 that included adults aged 18 years and above. Overall, emotional eating was generally associated with lower positive body image and higher negative body image. Conversely, negative body image was frequently associated with greater emotional eating tendencies. However, while most included studies reported cross-sectional associations or unidirectional predictive relationships, there was limited evidence to support bidirectional predictive effects. By synthesizing findings from cross-sectional and longitudinal studies, this review highlights the predominantly associative and context-dependent nature of the relationship between emotional eating and body image.