Evidence map›Paper›PMID 42166487›Full record

SynthesisPloS one2026

A systematic review and narrative synthesis of the psychometric properties and biopsychosocial correlates of the English version of the Intuitive Eating Scale-2.

Rebecca J Linnett, Noelle Robertson, Stephanie J Hubbard

Abstract readSystematic Review
In one paragraph

Synthesis in PloS one, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
1citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

1 citing paper in PubMed.

  1. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors.

Rebecca J LinnettDepartment of Population Health Sciences, University of Leicester, Leicester, United Kingdom.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7357-0552
Noelle RobertsonDepartment of Psychology and Vision Sciences, University of Leicester, Leicester, United Kingdom.
Stephanie J HubbardDepartment of Population Health Sciences, University of Leicester, Leicester, United Kingdom.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Intuitive eating is an adaptive eating approach characterised by having unconditional permission to eat when you are hungry, eating for physical rather than emotional reasons, relying on internal hunger and satiety cues, and honouring your health and practising gentle nutrition. The Intuitive Eating Scale-2 (IES-2) is currently the most commonly-used intuitive eating measure but, to date, there has not been a systematic review of how it performs psychometrically outside of the student sample in which it was developed. This systematic review aimed to assess the psychometric properties of the IES-2, including its associations with other variables, across all studies that used it as a measure of intuitive eating and reported psychometric data. MEDLINE, PsycINFO, Scopus and Web of Science were searched in April 2022, May 2024 and June 2025, identifying 90 papers from diverse populations including college students, people from the general population/community, and people seeking treatment for eating disorders or weight management. Results were presented and synthesised narratively, and risk of bias was assessed using two domains from the COSMIN Risk of Bias checklist. Findings suggest that the IES-2 has good construct validity but underperforms psychometrically in other areas such as response distribution, subscale inter-correlations and dimensionality, particularly in relation to the 'Unconditional permission to eat' subscale. Alternative factor structures were reported on and a three-factor solution excluding the 'Unconditional permission to eat' subscale was found to have promising results. The review contributes a comprehensive account of the biopsychosocial correlates of the IES-2, as well as identifying that studies relating to weight or eating disorders often report mean scores that tend towards the extremes of the scale. Limitations include the exclusion of non-English translations of the IES-2, and future reviews would benefit from being conducted in other languages. PROSPERO registration: CRD42022299436. Funder: ESRC (ES/P000711/1).

Indexed as

EatingFeeding and Eating DisordersFeeding BehaviorIntuitionPsychometricsHumansHungerReproducibility of ResultsSurveys and Questionnaires

Identifiers

PMID42166487
PMCPMC13193400

What OpenQuestion holds

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LicenceCC BY
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Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.