Food addiction and impulsivity in adolescents: A cross-sectional survey of 360 cases

Abstract

Introduction Impulsive personality Traits have been highly associated with both alcohol abuse and drug addiction, but have been accorded little attention in the context of food addiction. Objectives To study the relationship between impulsivity and food addiction in school-aged adolescents. Methods It is a cross-sectional, descriptive and analytical survey, conducted in a sample of secondary school students, randomly collected in 6 schools in the region of Sfax during February 2022. A pre established form of 33 questions, including socio- demographic and family information was used. Impulsivity was evaluated by the Barratt Impulsivity Scale (BIS-11; Patton et al., 1995). The BIS is a 30-item questionnaire that measures impulsivity along the following dimensions: cognitive, motor, and non-planning. The validated arabic version was used. * The 25-item Yale Food Addiction Scale (YFAS), validated in Arabic, was used to assess food addiction in adolescents. Results Our sample consisted of 360 adolescents, with an average age of 16.62 years, being male in 52.2% and with a low to medium socio-economic level in 72.7% of them. A total of 20% of the adolescents showed a tendency to impulsivity, 23.6% had impulse control disorder. The food addiction score of our sample ranged from 0 to 56 with an average of 16.37 ± 12.380. The average food addiction score for adolescents with impulse control disorder was 20.21 ±14.819 while the average food addiction score for adolescents without impulse control disorder was 15.18 ± 11.291. Food addiction was strongly associated with impulsivity (p < 0.001).In particularly, Non-planning impulsivity was most strongly correlated with food addiction (p < 0.001, r ꞊ 0.252) Conclusions Impulsivity, commonly related to addictive substance use behaviors, may be a significant risk factor for food addiction. Early monitoring of impulse control disorder may help to reduce addictive food consumption. Disclosure of Interest None Declared