Yale Food Addiction Scale Helps Measure Food Addiction: Systematic Review

Yale Food Addiction Scale (YFAS) can now measure clinical food addiction, reports a new study. The findings of the study are published in the journal Current Neuropharmacology.

Yale Food Addiction Scale (YFAS) is used in different populations mainly, in obese patients who are planning for bariatric surgery. Clinical food addiction diagnoses.

‘Yale Food Addiction Scale (YFAS) which was originally developed on the basis of criteria for identifying substance addictions can now measure clinical food addiction.’

This systematic review covers literature published on food addiction diagnosis using PsycINFO, MEDLINE, and PsycARTICLES. Recent studies have been reviewed due to the introduction of YFAS 2.0, mYFAS in light of the debate on behavioral addictions clinical food addiction diagnoses.

The results of clinical and non-clinical samples with a higher body mass and incidence of eating disorders (EDs), shows higher scores of YFAS in binge eating disorder (BED) clinical food addiction diagnoses.

The studies revealed that the incidence of food addictions differs according to the population studied and this is dependent on sample selection methods. The criteria for the differentiation of food addictions and other eating and addictive disorders can be made from the analysis of behavioral addictions clinical food addiction diagnoses.

However, the authors of this review recommend that study groups should conduct further research in this field considering the psychological processes of obsessive eating in view of behavioral addictions. There are some limitations associated with YFAS item formulation and some items necessities to be examined in a different way in future studies. The studies must determine individual items of the scale to evaluate mechanisms from a clinical perspective.

Source: Eurekalert