Assessment of food addiction using the Yale Food Addiction Scale 2.0 in individuals with binge-eating disorder symptomatology: Factor structure, psychometric properties, and clinical significance
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The Yale Food Addiction Scale 2.0 (YFAS) assesses addiction-like eating of palatable foods based on the 11 diagnostic criteria for substance use disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). This study was the first to investigate the factor structure, psychometric properties, and clinical significance of the YFAS 2.0 in individuals with binge-eating disorder (BED) symptomatology. Data were analysed from 220 community-based participants who met criteria for "probable BED" based on self-report symptom frequency. Classification of food addiction (FA) was met by 42.3% of the sample. The YFAS 2.0 exhibited a unidimensional structure, adequate internal consistency, and convergent and incremental validity. YFAS 2.0 scores contributed the largest percentage of unique variance in psychological distress and impairment over other BED features (overvaluation of weight and shape, binge eating, BMI), highlighting the clinical significance of the FA construct in BED. Support for the validity and reliability of the YFAS 2.0 in individuals with BED-like symptoms was found. Findings also suggest that the presence of FA may represent a more disturbed group of BED characterised by greater general and eating disorder-specific psychopathology. Our findings overall highlight the potential need to screen and assess addictive-like eating behaviours during interventions for BED.
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The presence of food addiction may represent a more disturbed group of binge eating disorder characterized by greater psychopathology.
“The presence of FA may represent a more disturbed group of BED characterized by greater psychopathology [64].”
From Separating the Signal from the Noise: How Psychiatric Diagnoses Can Help Discern Food Addiction from Dietary Restraint (2020) · cites this paper as [64]
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- Authors
- Linardon, J., & Messer, M.
- Affiliations
- Deakin University (AU)
- Corresponding author
- Linardon, Jake
- Venue
- Psychiatry Research
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2019-09
- Volume
- 279
- Pages
- 216-221
- ISSN
- 0165-1781 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2921692475
- Cited by
- 31
- References
- 35
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 8 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 7 · 2019: 2
- FWCI
- 5.84
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- figshare.com
- Licence
- Locations
- Psychiatry Research (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Eating Disorders and Behaviors
- Health Sciences › Nursing › Nutrition and Dietetics › Nutrition, Health and Food Behavior
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Child Nutrition and Feeding Issues
- Keywords
- food addiction, binge eating disorder, factor structure, psychometric properties, psychological distress, psychological impairment, binge eating, body mass index, screening
- MeSH terms
- Food Addiction, Adolescent, Adult, Cross-Sectional Studies, Female, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Psychiatric Status Rating Scales, Psychometrics, Reproducibility of Results, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Young Adult, Binge-Eating Disorder, Self Report
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