Relationships Between College Students' Cognitive Load Level and Personality, Health, Weight‐Related Behaviors, Body Image and Family Life

Cognitive load (CL; amount of working memory available for mental tasks) affects many decisions, including those that affect body weight. However research elucidating relationships between CL and health‐related decisions (e.g., meal planning, scheduling exercise) remains limited. Thus, an online survey of 445 college students was conducted to explore the relationships between CL and health, weight‐related behaviors, body image, intrapersonal characteristics, personality, and family life. CL score was derived from factors previously identified as affecting CL (e.g., non‐white race, country of origin, time scarcity, affluence level, satisfaction with life, perceived experiences with discrimination, hassles, and stress). Students were partitioned into tertiles based on CL score, with higher scores indicating greater CL (i.e., less available working memory). ANOVA and Tukey post‐hoc tests indicated that highest tertile students (n=202) were significantly (p<0.05) more likely to be female. When comparing CL and health, the highest tertile rated general health significantly worse than middle (n= 114) and lower (n=129) tertiles and tended to have higher rates of depression and anxiety. Weight‐related behavior comparisons revealed that the highest tertile scored significantly higher on emotional eating, dichotomizing food as good or bad, compensatory restraint, distracted eating, and food addiction and lower on intuitive eating and physical activity than the lowest tertile. Body image also differed by CL; the highest tertile described themselves as significantly heavier and had greater body satisfaction than the lowest tertile, however BMI did not differ. A comparison of intrapersonal characteristics indicated that the highest tertile tended to have significantly lower self‐esteem, emotional support, emotional intelligence, ability to learn, work ethic, self‐control and flexibility scores than other tertiles. An examination of personality measures by tertile revealed that the highest tertile tended to have significantly lower conscientiousness and were less extroverted and agreeable, but were more emotionally stable than the lowest tertile. Family life measures revealed that the highest tertile had significantly more family conflict and household disorganization than lower tertiles. Maternal parenting styles did not differ across tertiles, but the highest tertile was significantly more likely to have fathers who employed permissive parenting style whereas the lowest tertile tended to have authoritative fathers. These findings suggest that college students with higher CL may have more mental health/emotional issues and weight‐related behaviors and body image perceptions associated with weight gain Interventions that build skills for reducing CL and/or building positive coping skills may help protect the health of high CL students. Support or Funding Information USDA NIFA #2011‐68001‐30170