Objective

Intuitive eating (IE) is consistently associated with a lower body mass index, though its relationship with adiposity, specifically abdominal adiposity, is unknown. Given that midlife women often experience increases in adiposity during midlife, our objective was to examine the association between IE and adiposity in midlife women. We also aimed to validate the factor structure of the Intuitive Eating Scale (IES) in a sample of midlife women.

Method

We analyzed data from a cross-sectional study of 116 women between 40 and 64 years of age. Participants completed in-person visits and self-reported questionnaires, including the 21-item IES. Adiposity was assessed using dual energy x-ray absorptiometry. Measurements included total body fat percentage and android/gynoid (AG) ratio as a measure of abdominal adiposity.

Results

Confirmatory factor analysis of the IES demonstrated a poor fit to the data. Thus, we conducted an exploratory factor analysis which resulted in a 15-item scale with five items on each subscale, and demonstrated improved fit. Higher intuitive eating was associated with lower total body fat percentage (β = −6.77, p < 0.0001) and lower abdominal adiposity (β = −0.09, p = 0.0005). Higher scores on eating for physical reasons and reliance on internal hunger and satiety cues were associated with lower total body fat and lower abdominal adiposity.

Conclusions

Our findings suggest that higher intuitive eating is associated with lower total body fat percentage and lower abdominal adiposity. These results may have public health implications to promote intuitive eating in midlife women, a population at risk of weight gain and changes to body fat distribution.

中文翻译：

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中年女性较高的直觉饮食与较低的肥胖率相关

客观的

直觉饮食（IE）始终与较低的体重指数相关，尽管其与肥胖（特别是腹部肥胖）的关系尚不清楚。鉴于中年女性在中年期间肥胖率通常会增加，我们的目标是研究中年女性 IE 与肥胖之间的关系。我们还旨在验证中年女性样本中直觉饮食量表（IES）的因子结构。

方法

我们分析了一项对 116 名 40 至 64 岁女性进行的横断面研究的数据。参与者完成了亲自访问和自我报告的调查问卷，包括 21 项 IES。使用双能X射线吸收测定法评估肥胖情况。测量结果包括全身脂肪百分比和机器人/女性（AG）比率，作为腹部肥胖的衡量标准。

结果

IES 的验证性因素分析表明与数据拟合不佳。因此，我们进行了探索性因素分析，得出了包含 15 个项目的量表，每个子量表有 5 个项目，并证明了拟合度的提高。较高的直觉饮食与较低的全身脂肪百分比（β  = -6.77，p  < 0.0001）和下腹部肥胖（β  = -0.09，p  = 0.0005）相关。因身体原因而进食以及对内部饥饿和饱腹感的依赖得分较高，与较低的全身脂肪和下腹部肥胖有关。

结论

我们的研究结果表明，较高的直觉饮食与较低的全身脂肪百分比和下腹部肥胖有关。这些结果可能对公共健康产生影响，促进中年女性的直觉饮食，这些女性有体重增加和身体脂肪分布变化的风险。