Objective:

1) To identify and to compare the food addiction symptoms of preschoolers with and without overweight-obesity (OW-OB), 2) To identify and to compare the frequency and intensity of food preschoolers cravings with and without overweight-obesity, 3) To identify factors that determine of preschooler BMI.

Material and Methods:

Descriptive correlational study, participated 201 caregivers. The Yale Food Addiction Scale for Children YFAS-C and Food Cravings Characteristics Questionnaire were applied. Preschooler weight and height were measured.

Results:

Kuder-Richardson reliability coefficient of YFAS-C was 0.635. A 91% of caregivers were mothers. Food addiction symptoms mean of preschoolers with OW-OB ẋ = 0.3488 (n = 43) and without OW-OB ẋ = 0.3987 (n = 158), U = 3351.00, p ˃ 0.05. The positive reinforcement anticipation was craving characteristic with the highest mean (ẋ = 9.05, SD = 4.21) and the lowest was emotions (ẋ = 2.40, SD = 0.878), no significant differences were found. No relation between food addiction symptoms and preschooler BMI was found. Cravings contributed to the preschool BMI, variance explained 12.2%.

Conclusions:

The YFAS-C scale is the only one designed to evaluate the food addiction symptoms of children, however none food addiction symptoms were identified. It is recommended to continue exploring this concept in this age group.

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