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Introduction
Losing parents or living away from them in early childhood may cause some emotional differences and affect children’s behaviors and even characteristic features. Depression, anxiety, stress, aggressive demeanors, difficulty socializing, and low self-esteem are some of the emotional features observed in children and adolescents who have lost their parents. Unfortunately, such emotional features that emerge in the juvenile period may continue until the end of their lives [1]. All these emotions can affect their current and future life quality [2]. Nutrition is one of the most important determinants of life quality. Studies focused on children’s nutritional behaviors in child protection centers have shown that nutrition-related problems are common in these populations [3, 4]. Moreover, another study reported that children who live away from their parents have emotionally related behavior abnormalities [5]. In the current literature, some studies have reported that trauma-related negative emotions may cause different nutritional attitudes in children and adolescents [6, 7–8]. However, these studies did not focus on children under protection care who live away from their parents in the protection center. When the literature was searched for this subject, no data was found about protected children or orphans’ emotional nutrition attitudes. Other important determinants of life quality are sleep patterns and quality [9]. Physical activity, social and psychological health, nutrition habits, and stress affect sleep quality [10]. Emotions such as anxiety and worry are also related to low sleep quality [11]. While there are important studies that show emotional and behavioral abnormalities are common in protected children or orphans, there is no data about important determinants of their life quality, such as emotional eating status and sleep behaviors. Consequently, it is clear that research is needed both in Cyprus and nutrition science to evaluate the emotional eating and sleep behavior of government-protected children. With this in mind, the presented study aimed to determine the emotional eating and sleep behaviors of protected children and compare them with their peers who live with their parents.
Materials and methods
Place, time, and sample selection
The current study was conducted in the northern side of Cyprus between May 2022 and April 2023. There were two study groups: ‘Group 1: Government-protected children’ and ‘Group 2: Children living with their parents’. All protected children on the...