Eating Pathology After Bariatric Surgery: an Updated Review of the Recent Literature

The goal of this paper was to extend the prior literature on eating pathology following bariatric surgery by highlighting themes in data published over the past 3 years and identifying limitations and future directions for research.

Changes in eating pathology after bariatric surgery remain consistent with previous research. Specifically, diagnostic prevalence rates and incidence of related behaviors generally decrease following surgery. However, some research supports that these factors increase and/or remit over time following surgery, and that they subsequently have a negative impact on weight loss outcomes. While recent findings have extended knowledge on eating pathology following bariatric surgery, the overall body of literature is still relatively limited. Additional research is needed, including work focusing on the standardization of eating pathology definitions, development/validation of standardized eating pathology instruments for bariatric surgery patients, and predictors of risk for continued or new onset eating pathology following surgery.