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A food addiction scale measurement in two cohorts of middleaged and older women
Author(s) -
Flint Alan John,
Gearhardt Ashley,
Corbin William,
Brownell Kelly,
Field Alison,
Rimm Eric
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.27.1_supplement.622.26
Subject(s) - food addiction , cohort , medicine , addiction , cohort study , demography , obesity , population , gerontology , environmental health , psychiatry , sociology
The authors examined the prevalence and associated characteristics of a food addiction scale measure in a cross‐sectional analysis of 134,175 women participating in two ongoing prospective cohort studies of U.S. nurses. Overall, 7,839 (5.8%) of the women surveyed met the criteria for food addiction as measured by the modified Yale Food Addiction Scale. The prevalence of food addiction was 8.4% in the younger cohort of women aged 45–64 years and 2.7% in the older cohort of women aged 62–87. In the multivariate model, BMI ≥ 35.0 kg/m2 (compared to BMI 18.5–22.9 kg/m2) was associated with food addiction, RR 15.83 (95% CI 12.58–19.91) among the younger cohort of women aged 45–64 years, and RR 18.41 (95% CI 11.63–29.14) among the older cohort of women aged 62–87. Several other demographic characteristics were associated with the food addiction measure in both cohorts of women. For the first time in a large U.S.‐based population of women, the authors have documented the high prevalence of food addiction by a novel measurement scale in middle‐aged and older women. The results may provide insight into the strong association between behavioral attributes of food consumption and the development of obesity.