Unique and Shared Symptoms Across Food Addiction and Binge-Eating Measures: A Content Analysis

Area of Science:

• Psychiatry and Behavioral Science
• Clinical Psychology
• Addiction Research

Background:

• High co-occurrence rates exist between food addiction (FA) and binge-spectrum eating disorders (BSEDs).
• It remains unclear if this overlap is due to shared symptoms assessed by their respective measures.
• The Yale Food Addiction Scale 2.0 (YFAS 2.0) is a common measure for FA.

Purpose of the Study:

• To determine if FA and BSED measures assess similar symptoms.
• To clarify if the YFAS 2.0 assesses a distinct symptom profile compared to common BSED measures.
• To focus the comparison on FA and binge-related features of BSEDs, excluding compensatory behaviors.

Main Methods:

• A content analysis was performed on the YFAS 2.0 and five prominent BSED measures.
• Trained coders assigned symptom codes to items from each measure.
• Jaccard similarity coefficients were calculated to quantify symptom overlap, after removing compensatory behavior items from BSED measures.

Main Results:

• The YFAS 2.0 demonstrated very low symptom overlap with BSED measures (Jaccard range: 0.08–0.19).
• Approximately 47% of YFAS 2.0 symptoms were found in at least one BSED measure.
• YFAS 2.0 symptoms not present in BSED measures focused on impairment and consequences, while BSED measures emphasized cognitive features of eating behavior.

Conclusions:

• FA and BSED measures share some content but also have distinct features.
• The YFAS 2.0 assesses unique aspects of impairment related to eating behavior.
• Future research should integrate measurement patterns with mechanistic and clinical course evidence to clarify the relationship between FA and BED.