Clinical Science Brown Bag: The Yale Food Addiction for Children 2.0 - A Dimensional Approach to Scoring

The Yale Food Addiction Scale for Children (YFAS-C) has not yet been updated to reflect the recent changes to substance use disorder criteria in the DSM-5. The current study aimed to examine the psychometric properties of the Yale Food Addiction Scale for Children 2.0 (YFAS-C 2.0) to see if the updated criteria are appropriate for examining food addiction in children and adolescents. After examining the endorsement of individual symptoms on the YFAS-C2.0 in a community sample of adolescents ages 13-16, we determined that many of the updated, problem-focused criteria in the DSM-5 are not endorsed by adolescents. Therefore, we created a dimensional version of the scale including only those items endorsed by more than 10% of the sample. The dimensional version of the scale demonstrated expected convergent validity with previously validated measures of maladaptive eating and also demonstrated strong internal reliability. Further, the items included on the dimensional version were more reflective of the mechanistic aspects of food addiction, including craving, the inability to cut down on certain foods, and eating more than originally intended. This suggests that the new problem-focused symptoms included in the DSM-5 (e.g. eating instead of completing homework, interference with social relationships) may not be developmentally appropriate in uncovering food addiction in individuals who are beginning to develop signs of maladaptive eating.