Adolescence is a period of rapid physical, psychological, and social changes, during which young people begin to gain independence and take more responsibility for their everyday decisions, including their diet. For young people with coeliac disease, navigating these changes can present additional challenges as they manage their condition.
Although dietary advice is the same regardless of age, young people’s experiences and how consistently they manage to follow a strict gluten free diet can vary considerably.
Dr. Zhijun (Cecilia) Chen, PhD, RD, and colleagues at Columbia University and Columbia’s Celiac Disease Center, have recently published a paper on their work exploring whether personality traits are associated with differences in dietary behaviours and psychological experiences.
The study involved 50 participants aged 14-17, from the U.S. celiac referral centre, who completed questionnaires designed to assess personality traits, gluten free diet adherence, eating behaviours, quality of life, anxiety and depressive symptoms.
Here are the key findings from the study:
- Lower levels of conscientiousness (self-discipline and organisation) were associated with poorer adherence to a gluten free diet.
- Higher neuroticism (stress, worry, and emotional instability) was associated with greater anxiety and depressive symptoms.
- Higher openness to experience (imagination, curiosity) was linked with more poorly adaptive food attitudes and behaviours, and a lower quality of life.
These findings suggest that personality traits may influence how young people experience and manage a gluten free diet. This poses an interesting question of whether understanding personality traits could help healthcare professionals explore more tailored counselling and dietary management approaches, to better reflect individual needs and experiences.
Dr Chen said:
“The dietary message is the same, but every adolescent brings different experiences, preferences and challenges to managing a gluten free diet. We wanted to understand whether personality might help explain some of that variation in dietary behaviours and emotional wellbeing. Our findings offer a starting point for further research into more individualised support, although whether tailoring structured counselling to personality improves outcomes still needs to be tested.”
It is important to note that this study was a small exploratory study that explored these associations at one point in time and therefore it is unable to say for certain that personality traits caused these differences. Further research may help us to better understand this.
To read the published paper, please visit this link.