Food Addiction; Prevalence and its Impact on Menoufia Medical Students

Abstract

Background: Food addiction, a dysfunctional eating pattern, is featured by a powerful desire to overeat highly appetizing foods. Food addiction has drawn more attention over the last decades as it is implicated as a factor in the rising rates of obesity worldwide. Objectives: to measure the prevalence, predictors, and impact of food addiction among the undergraduate medical students in Menoufia University. Method: A cross sectional study was carried out on 922 undergraduate medical students in Menoufia University. The modified Yale Food Addiction Scale (mYFAS 2.0) was used for food addiction diagnosis. Anxiety and depression were assessed using General Anxiety Disorder-7 scale (GAD-7) and Patient Health Questionnaire depression scale (PHQ-9) respectively. Results: Food addiction prevalence among the studied group was 10.4 % (96 out of 922), with 43 (44.8%) of them were of mild degree, 28 (29.2%) were of moderate degree and 25 (26.0%) had a severe form of food addiction. The most prevalent food addiction indicator was excess eating till feeling full (151, 16.4%). Significant predictors of food addiction were Smoking (p<0.001, OR 4.65 [2.51-8.31]), gender (p 0.024, OR 1.38 [1.08-3.10]), dieting (p <0.001, OR; 3.45 [2.05-5.81]), depression (p 0.001, OR; 2.56 [1.49-4.39]), and anxiety (p <0.001, OR; 3.26[1.92-5.54]). Conclusion: Food addiction had a considerable prevalence among the medical students, and it was strongly associated with smoking, dieting, depression, anxiety, and obesity. As a result, providing health education programs and psychological care is critical to lower the prevalence of food addiction and its related comorbidities among medical students.