Exploring Links Between Food Addiction and Weight-Related Outcomes in Young Adults

Emerging adulthood—a period when adolescents transition to early adulthood—is a time when people are at higher risk for developing disordered eating behaviors, as well as eating disorders. In the United States, emerging adults are also at risk of excess weight gain. Identifying risk factors for these conditions among emerging adults is a public health priority given their high prevalence and associations with adverse physical and mental health outcomes.

Food addiction is a possible contributor to overweight and obesity, but it is not well studied in emerging adults. Researchers from NICHD’s Social and Behavioral Sciences Branch evaluated data from the NEXT Generation Health Study, which enrolled a nationally representative sample of U.S. 10th graders and followed them through young adulthood. The NICHD study investigated relationships between food addiction and outcomes like weight, weight perception, and weight-control behaviors, such as dieting and fasting.

• In the study of 2,785 students, 4.7% had food addiction (measured by the modified Yale Food Addiction Scale) and of these, most were female (91%).
• According to the analyses, food addiction was associated with the following:
  • 31% higher relative risk of weight-control behaviors evaluated in the study
  • 34% higher risk of dieting
  • 50% higher risk of high BMI and the perception of being overweight
  • 64% higher risk of increased weight status (a measurement that takes height, weight, and sex into account)
• At a population level, the researchers estimated that food addiction contributed to smaller percentages of risk. For example, it likely contributed only 2% to high BMI, dieting, and weight-control behaviors, and contributed 5% to extreme weight control behaviors.
• Overall, the authors suggest that screening for food addiction in emerging adults may be useful for identifying individuals at risk of other adverse mental health symptoms who are likely to benefit from clinical evaluation and intervention.

Reference

Lipsky LM, Cummings JR, Haynie DL, and Nansel TR. The burden of overweight/obesity and weight-related behaviors attributable to food addiction in emerging adults Appetite DOI: 10.1016/j.appet.2024.107399 (2024)

Learn more about the Division of Population Health Research (DiPHR): https://www.nichd.nih.gov/about/org/dir/dph.