Abstract
Purpose
Food cravings are common, more prevalent in the obese, and may differ in those who pursue surgical treatment for obesity. Food craving tools are most often validated in non-clinical, non-obese samples.
Methods
In this retrospective study, 227 bariatric surgery candidates at a large medical center completed the Food Cravings Questionnaire-Trait (FCQ-T). The aim was to explore the factor structure of the FCQ-T.
Results
Principal components analysis with varimax rotation revealed a seven-factor structure that explained 70.89 % of the variance. The seven factors were: (1) preoccupation with food, (2) emotional triggers, (3) environmental cues, (4) loss of control, (5) relief from negative emotions, (6) guilt, and (7) physiological response. The preoccupation with food factor accounted for 49.46 % of the variance in responses.
Conclusions
Unlike other populations, food cravings in bariatric surgery candidates appear to be related most to preoccupations with food.
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Acknowledgments
This research was partially supported by the Menninger Foundation and McNair Medical Institute. Dr. Alok Madan is a McNair Scholar. The study follows the guidelines on good publication practices. The study sponsors were not involved in any aspect of the research activities and did not approve the specific protocol or manuscript. Thus, the authors were independent from study sponsors in the context of the research.
Conflict of interest
On behalf of all authors, the corresponding author states that there is no conflict of interest.
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Crowley, N., Madan, A., Wedin, S. et al. Food cravings among bariatric surgery candidates. Eat Weight Disord 19, 371–376 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40519-013-0095-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40519-013-0095-y