Introduction:

There is a close relationship between mental health and eating styles. Mental health indicators such as anxious and depressive symptomatology have reported direct effects on eating styles that promote excess malnutrition such as emotional or restrictive eating. The aim was to analyze the effect of anxious and depressive symptomatology on eating styles in women and men from northern and central Chile.

Method:

Nine hundred and ten adults living in northern and central Chile participated in the study. The Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire (DEBQ), the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) and the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II) were administered. The analysis of the global model of the relationship between variables was carried out using structural equation modeling.

Results:

The structural model presented adequate goodness-of-fit indicators, anxious symptomatology had a direct and significant effect on emotional eating, external eating and restrictive eating. On the other hand, depressive symptomatology, did not present significant effects on any eating style.

Conclusions:

As anxiety levels increase, levels of all eating styles increase. Depression, could interact mediating the relationship by the emotional context that generates the depressive symptomatology.

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