Food addiction (FA) refers to the idea that certain foods (e.g., highly processed, calorie dense) may trigger an addictive-like response in some individuals (Davis et al., 2011). A growing body of evidence has identified numerous similarities linking excess food consumption and addiction. For example, early work in animal models has demonstrated that rats exhibited biological and behavioural attributes of addiction (e.g., decreased sensitivity of dopamine, desire to obtain food in spite of adverse consequences, withdrawal etc.) with highly processed foods (Avena et al., 2008). Moreover, neuroimaging studies have also shown that ingesting either highly processed foods or drugs activated similar neural systems, and that the dopamine-related neural activation was comparable between obese and drug-addicted patients (Stice et al., 2009, Volkow et al., 2008). Finally, several behavioural indicators of addiction have also shown to be present in disturbed eating behaviours in humans, such as a loss of control, an inability to stop problematic use, and continued use in spite of adverse consequences (Davis et al., 2011).

Although this concept of food addiction (FA) remains controversial, it has received an enormous amount of scientific attention in recent years (e.g., Davis, 2013, Gearhardt et al., 2011a). Part of the popularity of the FA concept comes from the development of the initial 25-item Yale Food Addiction Scale (YFAS; Gearhardt et al., 2009), which was the first self-report measure to operationalise FA and assess addiction-like eating based on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) criteria for substance dependence (American Psychiatric Association, 1995).

An updated version of the YFAS (YFAS 2.0; Gearhardt et al., 2016) was recently developed to coincide with the revised criteria for substance use disorder (SUD) presented in the latest DSM (DSM-5; American Psychiatric Association, 2013). In the DSM-5, SUDs are no longer classified as substance abuse or substance dependence, but now reflect a single disorder with severity specifiers (mild, moderate, severe) based on the number of symptoms exhibited. A DSM-5 diagnosis of SUD is based on 11 criteria, which include the previous features of substance dependence (e.g., tolerance, withdrawal) from the DSM-IV and one new criterion related to craving. The threshold for a DSM-5 SUD diagnosis requires that at least two of the 11 criteria are met over a 12-month period. The YFAS 2.0 reflects these changes by containing 35-item items assessing the same 11 criteria for SUDs (but modified in a way to reflect an addictive-like response to palatable food) as well as impairment and distress. Evidence upholds the psychometric properties of the YFAS 2.0 in non-clinical normal weight and overweight samples, including a well-replicated one-factor structure, adequate internal consistency, and convergent and incremental validity (Aloi et al., 2017, Brunault et al., 2017, Gearhardt et al., 2016, Granero et al., 2018, Meule et al., 2017).