The Effect of COVID-19 Information Overload on Emotional Eating in Post-pandemic Period in China: The Mediating Role of Fear of COVID-19 and the Moderating Role of Self-compassion

This study investigated the impact of COVID-19 information overload on emotional eating behavior in China’s post-pandemic period, while considering the mediating role of fear of COVID-19 and the protective role of self-compassion. The study was based on stimulus-organism-response framework and emotion regulation theories and it used convenience sampling to recruit 902 adult participants from 31 provinces in China, who completed the COVID-19 Information Overload Scale, Fear of COVID-19 Scale, Emotional Eating Scale, and Self-Compassion Scale. SPSS 24.0 and the Process 3.5 macro program were used to carry out descriptive statistical, correlation analyses and moderated mediating effect tests on the data. The results indicated that COVID-19 information overload is a significant predictor of emotional eating behavior, with fear of COVID-19 mediating this relationship. Furthermore, the study found that self-compassion moderates the negative effect of COVID-19 information overload on fear of COVID-19 and mitigates the effect of fear of COVID-19 on emotional eating. The findings highlight the mechanisms by which excessive and ambiguous information affects emotional eating behavior in the post-pandemic period and provide insights on how to improve individual emotional eating behavior.