Development of the highly processed food withdrawal scale

The theory that highly processed foods may be capable of triggering addictive-like symptoms including withdrawal in people, led Schulte and her team (2018) to develop a self-report measure of highly processed food withdrawal. The Highly Processed Food Withdrawal Scale (ProWS), which was adapted from self-report measures of drug withdrawal, was assessed on internal consistency and validity by this study. The 231 subjects were adults (aged 19-68) and had cut down on processed foods during the past year. Over the course of their drug withdrawals, the ProWS were reported as most intense between days 2-5 during an attempt to cut down. The ProWS were found to show convergent validity with addictive-like eating (r = 0.48, p < .001), body mass index (BMI) (r = 0.16, p = .02), and weight cycling (r = 0.29, p < .001) in addition to discriminant validity with dietary restraint: (r = -0.13, p = .04). Moreover, the newly developed measure explained 11.2% of variance in self-reported success in last diet attempts beyond addictive-like eating and BMI, and appeared to be a psychometrically sound tool in future studies researching withdrawals from processed foods in humans. Schulte et al. (2018) are hopeful that the data presented in this study may also provide preliminary insight into the plausibility of withdrawal symptoms occurring in response to cutting down on highly processed foods. [NPID: sugar, processed food, food addiction, addiction]

Year: 2018

Reference: Parnarouskis, L., Schulte, E. M., Lumeng, J. C., & Gearhardt, A. N. (2020). Development of the Highly Processed Food Withdrawal Scale for Children. Appetite, 147, 104553. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2019.104553

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