Lemeshow, A. R., Rimm, E. B., Hasin, D. S., Gearhardt, A. N., Flint, A. J., Field, A. E., & Genkinger, J. M. (2018). Food and beverage consumption and food addiction among women in the Nurses’ Health Studies. Appetite, 121
, 186–197. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2017.10.038
From the research article’s abstract: “Previous studies have not addressed a fundamental component of a food addiction disorder: the compulsive relationship between eating and potentially positively reinforcing foods. We aimed to evaluate the association between food consumption and food addiction. We conducted cross-sectional analyses merging data from the Nurses’ Health Study (n = 58,625) and Nurses’ Health Study II (n = 65,063), two prospective cohort studies of female nurses in the United States. Diet was assessed in 2006–2007 using a food frequency questionnaire, and food addiction was assessed in 2008–2009 using the Modified Yale Food Addiction Scale. The prevalence of food addiction was 5.4%. The odds of food addiction were strongest among nurses consuming 5+ servings/week (compared with <1 serving/month) of hamburgers (multivariable odds ratio (MVOR) 4.08; 95% CI, 2.66–6.25), French fries (MVOR, 2.37; 95% CI, 1.59–3.51) and pizza (MVOR, 2.49; 95% CI, 1.67–3.69).