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Development of the modified Highly Processed Food Withdrawal Scale (mProWS)
Shuchen Hu1, Ashley N Gearhardt2, Erica M LaFata3
1Department of Clinical and Counseling Psychology, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA.
Appetite
|April 23, 2024
Summary
A new 7-item scale effectively measures withdrawal symptoms from ultra-processed foods, mirroring the longer 29-item version. This modified scale (mProWS) is suitable for real-time assessment in studies with high participant burden.
Area of Science:
- Psychology
- Nutrition Science
- Behavioral Science
Background:
- Ultra-processed foods are linked to various health issues.
- Withdrawal symptoms can occur when reducing consumption of these foods.
- The original Highly Processed Food Withdrawal Scale (ProWS) is a 29-item measure.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop and validate a briefer 7-item version of the ProWS (modified ProWS; mProWS).
- To evaluate the psychometric properties of the mProWS in an independent sample.
Main Methods:
- Developed the mProWS from the original ProWS validation sample (n=231).
- Validated the mProWS in an independent sample (n=244) from Amazon Mechanical Turk.
- Assessed reliability, convergent validity (addictive-like eating), discriminant validity (food restriction desire), and incremental validity (weight cycling).
Main Results:
- The mProWS demonstrated comparable reliability and validity to the full ProWS.
- The mProWS showed similar associations with addictive-like eating behaviors.
- It also exhibited similar discriminant and incremental validity, including links to weight cycling beyond BMI and Yale Food Addiction Scale 2.0 symptoms.
Conclusions:
- The modified ProWS (mProWS) is a psychometrically sound, brief measure for assessing withdrawal symptoms from ultra-processed foods.
- The mProWS is suitable for studies with high participant burden, such as ecological momentary assessment, for real-time symptom tracking.
