Food Addiction and Self-Efficacy for Physical Activity in obesity treatment

Sammanfattning: Obesity is an increasing public health issue in many parts of the world. Lifestyle treatment is the recommended first-line treatment although the weight reduction over time is limited. Food addiction (FA) is an upcoming perspective viewing some individual’s eating behaviors as similar to substance abuse described in DSM-IV-TR. What impact FA might have in lifestyle treatment is unclear. Self-efficacy for physical activity (SEPA) is a well-known predictor for physical activity and a variable in lifestyle treatment. The purpose of this explorative cross-sectional study was to investigate how FA and SEPA separately and together relate to days in lifestyle treatment for obesity. The study had 41 participants in different stages of lifestyle treatment. Instruments used to measure FA and SEPA were Yale Food Addiction Scale – Swedish (YFAS-S) and Exercise Self-Efficacy Scale – Swedish (ESES-S). FA and SEPA did not relate to each other or to number of days in treatment, indicating that the two factors are unaffected by lifestyle treatment. Future studies investigating if FA affects weight regain after treatment are suggested.