The M-A QoLQII correlates well with other widely used health and well-being indicators such as the SF-36, Beck Depression Inventory II and the Stunkard and Messick Eating Inventory. The study established the validity and reliability of this improved disease-specific instrument for QoL measurement in the obese population.

Objective: Despite alarming prevalence rates, surprisingly little is known about neural mechanisms underlying eating behavior in juveniles with obesity. To simulate reactivity to modern food environments, event-related potentials (ERP) to appetizing food images (relative to control images) were recorded in adolescents with obesity and healthy adolescents. Methods: Thirty-four adolescents with obesity (patients) and 24 matched healthy control adolescents watched and rated standardized food and object images during ERP recording. Personality (impulsivity) and eating styles (trait craving and dietary restraint) were assessed as potential moderators. Results: Food relative to object images triggered larger early (P100) and late (P300) ERPs. More impulsive individuals had considerably larger food-specific P100 amplitudes in both groups. Controls with higher restraint scores showed reduced food-specific P300 amplitudes and subjective palatability ratings whereas patients with higher restraint scores showed increased P300 and palatability ratings.Conclusions: This first ERP study in adolescents with obesity and controls revealed impulsivity as a general risk factor in the current obesogenic environment by increasing food-cue salience. Dietary restraint showed paradoxical effects in patients, making them more vulnerable to visual food-cues. Salutogenic therapeutic approaches that deemphasize strict dietary restraint and foster healthy food choice might reduce such paradoxical effects.

Objective: This paper introduces health professionals to the different psychological models thought to influence eating behaviour in the absence of hunger in children who are obese and to propose a method of assessing these behaviours in practice. Methods: Clinical researchers from the European Childhood Obesity Group (ECOG) adopted an evidence-based approach to examine the literature concerning the assessment of eating behaviour in children who are obese. Studies published in English were filtered out of the medical and psychological literature from 1960 to the present, and the resulting bibliography was searched for relevant articles. Key themes from the current evidence were compiled and classified according to the underpinning psychological models. Based on the current evidence and the authors' combined clinical experience, a three-staged approach to assessment was agreed by consensus. Results: Valid and reliable tools for assessing and monitoring each of the three identified models (Dietary Restraint Theory, Emotional Eating and the Diathesis-Stress Model) are suggested for use in clinical practice, and the ECOG three-staged approach to assessing eating behaviours in the absence of hunger is described. Conclusions: This paper presents practical guidance on how to assess eating behaviour in the absence of hunger in children who are clinically obese and suggests a focus for future research.

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Obesity is a heterogeneous condition with obese individuals displaying different eating patterns. Growing evidence suggests that there is a subgroup of obese adults that is marked by frequent and intense food cravings and addiction-like consumption of high-calorie foods. Little is known, however, about such a subgroup of obese individuals in childhood and adolescence. In the present study, a sample of children and adolescents with a wide range in body mass was investigated and trait food craving, liking for and intake of high- and low-calorie foods was measured. One-hundred and forty-two children and adolescents (51.4% female, n = 73; Mage = 13.7 years, SD = 2.25; MBMI-SDS = 1.26, SD = 1.50) completed the Food Cravings Questionnaire-Trait, then viewed pictures of high- and low-calorie foods and rated their liking for them, and subsequently consumed some of these foods in a bogus taste test. Contrary to expectations, higher body mass was associated with lower consumption of high-calorie foods. However, there was an interaction between body mass and trait food craving when predicting food consumption: in obese participants, higher trait food craving was associated with higher consumption of high-calorie foods and this association was not found in normal-weight participants. The relationship between trait food craving and high-calorie food consumption within obese individuals was mediated by higher liking for high-calorie foods (but not by liking for low-calorie foods). Thus, similar to adults, a subgroup of obese children and adolescents – characterized by high trait food craving – seems to exist, calling for specific targeted treatment strategies.