Psychological and behavioral correlates of food addiction symptoms in university students: the role of hedonic eating and food label attitudes.

Abstract

Food addiction (FA) involves addictive-like eating and impaired control over palatable food consumption. This cross-sectional study examined FA correlates among 404 university students, focusing on palatable eating motives and food label reading attitudes. Sixty-six participants (16.3%) met the original Yale Food Addiction Scale (YFAS 1.0) threshold of at least three of seven DSM-IV-TR criteria plus clinically significant impairment or distress. Female sex, smoking, obesity, and a higher T-PEMS mean were associated with higher odds of meeting the threshold; the obesity estimate was imprecise because that subgroup was small. Model discrimination was acceptable in-sample (AUC = 0.746). The T-PEMS mean had a weak inverse correlation with label attitudes (r = -0.143) that was not significant after adjustment (β = -0.10, p = 0.060; R² = 0.057). Findings support an association between palatable eating motives and FA but limited evidence for an independent label-attitude relationship. Longitudinal and multicenter studies are needed.