Adaptation and validation of the Hungarian version of the Yale Food Addiction Scale for Children
Adaptation and validation of the Hungarian version of the Yale Food Addiction Scale for Children

Summary/Abstract: Childhood obesity proves to be an important public health issue, since it serves as a potential risk factor for multiple diseases. Food addiction could also serve as an important etiological factor. As childhood obesity plays a serious issue also in Hungary, we aimed to adapt and validate the Hungarian version of the Yale Food Addiction Scale for Children (H-YFAS-C). Methods: A total of 191 children were assessed with the H-YFAS-C and the Eating Disorder Inventory (EDI). The following psychometric properties were analyzed: internal consistency, construct validity, convergent, and discriminant validity. Results: A good construct validity was revealed by confirmatory factor analysis (RMSEA = 0.0528, CFI = 0.896, χ2 value = 279.06). Question 25 proved to have no significant effect on its group and was removed from further analyses. The Kuder–Richardson 20 coefficient indicated good internal consistency (K20 = 0.82). With the use of the eight EDI subscales, a good convergent and discriminant validity could be determined. Food addiction was diagnosed in 8.9% of children. The mean symptom count was 1.7 ± 1.2 (range: 0–7). Females were more often diagnosed with food addiction than males (p = .016; OR = 3.6, 95% CI: 1.2–10.6). BMI percentiles were significantly higher in children with diagnosed food addiction (p = .003). There proved to be no correlation between age and the occurrence of food addiction. Discussion and conclusion: Our results show that H-YFAS-C is a good and reliable tool for addictive-like behavior assessment.

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