The Irrational Food Beliefs Scale: Validation of the Italian Version in Patients with Obesity

The Irrational Food Beliefs Scale (IFBS) is a self-report questionnaire comprising 57 items, 41 of which in the irrational food beliefs subscale, assessing cognitive distortions and inappropriate attitudes and beliefs about food. This study aimed to propose the Italian version of the IFBS and examine its psychometric properties. The tool was translated into Italian and administered to 503 Italian-speaking patients with obesity and 45 healthy controls. The clinical group also completed the Eating Disorder Examination (EDE) interview, and the Symptom Checklist-90 (SCL-90). Principal factor analysis identified that 51.6% of the variance was accounted for by six factors, which we termed ‘self-deception on eating and weight control’, ‘beliefs about eating and emotion regulation’, ‘low tolerance for eating control’, ‘beliefs about eating and hedonic pleasure’, ‘beliefs about dieting’, and ‘all-or-nothing thinking about eating.‘ The IFBS global and subscale scores were partially correlated with eating-disorder and general psychopathology. Significantly higher scores were found in patients with obesity and binge-eating disorder than in those with obesity without binge-eating disorder. Overall, the study demonstrated the good psychometric properties of the Italian version of the IFBS and validated its use in Italian-speaking patients with obesity.