SynthesisObesity reviews : an official journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity2021
Prevalence of food addiction in children and adolescents: A systematic review and meta-analysis.
Synthesis in Obesity reviews : an official journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 46 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
46 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 91 citations in OpenAlex.
- The Associations Between Social Support and Problematic Mobile Phone Use Among Children and Adolescents: A Three-level Meta-analysis.Journal of youth and adolescence · 2025Pooled it
- Prevalence of food addiction in children and adolescents: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Obesity reviews : an official journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity · 2021Pooled it
- State of the Science on Ultra-processed Foods and the Ultra-processed Food Addiction Construct.Current obesity reports · 2026Review
- The Role of Gut Microbiota in the Pathogenesis of Obesity and Food Addiction: The Importance of the Gut-Brain Axis and the Dopaminergic System.Brain sciences · 2026Review
- Associations between food addiction symptoms, food intake and BMI-for-age in children from a low-income region: A structural equation modeling approach.European journal of clinical nutrition · 2026Article
- Mindful eating may help explain the association between psychological difficulties and food addiction in adolescents with obesity.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Behavioural addiction and associated risk factors among high school students.Acta neuropsychiatrica · 2026Article
- Clinical correlates of depressed adolescents comorbid with food addiction: a cross-sectional study.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Article
- Food addiction research in India: a scoping review.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Food addiction in children: a network analysis of nutritional, metabolic, and sociodemographic factors.Journal of eating disorders · 2025Article
- Prevalence of food addiction and sex-specific correlates in a large sample of Iranian adults.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- From Supermarkets to Farms: Food Policy and the Obesity Epidemic.Journal of general internal medicine · 2025Review
- Executive functioning difficulties in relation to food addiction, disordered eating attitudes, and metabolic syndrome markers among adolescents seeking obesity treatment: a cross-sectional analysis.Journal of eating disorders · 2025Article
- Association Between Childhood Obesity and the Risk of Food Addiction: A Matched Case-Control Study.Nutrients · 2025Article
- Dietary Habits, Obesity, and Bariatric Surgery: A Review of Impact and Interventions.Nutrients · 2025Review
- The effect of dietary carbohydrate quality on depression and anxiety levels in adolescents.Frontiers in nutrition · 2025Article
- Reliability and validity of the Addiction-Like eating behavior scale (AEBS) in a Peruvian adolescent population.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Validity and reliability of a questionnaire that aims to investigate consumption and problematic eating behaviours towards refined sugar.Journal of nutritional science · 2025Article
- Diet-related behaviors affecting health and substance use among children and adolescents.Clinical and experimental pediatrics · 2024Article
- Food Addiction.Brain sciences · 2024Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 5 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Food addiction (FA) has been as a construct that is associated with childhood obesity. However, relatively little is known regarding the prevalence of FA among children and adolescents. An instrument designed to assess FA among youth, the Yale Food Addiction Scale for Children and Adolescents (YFAS-C), has been developed and used to estimate FA prevalence among pediatric populations. The present systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to synthesize the results of FA prevalence among youth. Using keywords related to FA and children to search PubMed, Embase, Scopus, and Web of Science, we identified and analyzed 22 cross-sectional studies. No longitudinal studies were identified in the search. Meta-analysis with Freeman-Tukey Double Arcsine transformation was conducted to estimate FA prevalence. Meta-regression was applied to understand whether weight status (i.e., data from community samples vs. overweight/obese samples) is associated with FA. Eligible studies (N = 22) were analyzed using 6,996 participants. The estimated FA prevalence was 15% (95% CI 11-19%) for all samples, 12% (95% CI 8-17%) for community samples, and 19% (95% CI 14-26%) for overweight/obese samples. Meta-regression indicated that weight status was associated with FA severity (p = 0.002) and marginally with FA prevalence (p = 0.056). Healthcare providers should consider and address the high FA prevalence among pediatric population.
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