Characterization of the Three-Factor Eating Questionnaire scores of a young French cohort.

The aims of our study were to characterize the psychological dimensions of eating behaviour of young French adults as measured by the Three Factor Eating Questionnaire (TFEQ) and to analyze the association between the 3 TFEQ mean scores (main scales and subscales) and gender, Body Mass Index (BMI) and socio-demographic data in this population. An online TFEQ questionnaire was used with a nationally representative sample of 1000 young French people (aged 20-39yrs). The average scores were 6.3±0.1 (sem) for dietary restraint, 6.0±0.1 for disinhibition and 5.0±0.1 for hunger. Compared to the limit commonly used in human food studies, young French adults were characterized by low restraint and low disinhibition levels. There was a significant gender effect on both restraint and disinhibition scores, with women showing significantly higher scores than men. Concerning the link between TFEQ scores and BMI, there was a significant effect of the BMI category on cognitive restraint, disinhibition and hunger. Disinhibition was the factor most strongly associated to BMI, independently of gender. Our results highlight both the importance of taking into account not only disinhibition but also cognitive restraint and the usefulness of subscales when studying eating behaviour and its link to body weight. We characterize the eating behaviour of a French cohort with criteria often chosen for healthy volunteers in human food studies. Consequently, we suggest new TFEQ limits (6 for cognitive restraint and disinhibition, 5 for hunger) lower than those traditionally used for this category of the population in clinical food studies.

The satiety effect of disguised liquid preloads administered acutely and differing only in their nutrient content tended to be weaker for lipids but did not differ between proteins and carbohydrates in human subjects.

Whether protein is the macronutrient with the strongest satiety effect remains a matter of debate because of the diversity of study designs employed. The aim of the present study was to compare the effect of different liquid preloads made up of proteins, fats or carbohydrates only, under stringently controlled conditions, on satiety. Fifty-six subjects participated in the present study which consisted of four randomised test days, i.e. 1 d per macronutrient and one control day. During each test day, the subjects were required to consume the preload in full, and then their subsequent food intake was measured. The volunteers were divided into two groups: the first (T0) group, which consumed the preload immediately before lunch, and the second (T1) group, which consumed it 1 h beforehand. The main results showed that the participants consumed significantly less at lunch following the consumption of all three preloads than on the no-preload day, and consumed less after the consumption of the carbohydrate preload than after the consumption of the lipid preload. When energy from the preload was included, overall energy intake was significantly greater in all the three preload conditions than in the situation involving no preload, with only partial compensation for preload energy in all conditions. Total daily energy intake was highest after the lipid preload ingestion, but this could be a chance finding since it was not significantly higher than that observed after protein or carbohydrate preload ingestion. No significant effects of the interval between the preload and test meal ingestion were found. These results do not confirm the greater satiety effect of proteins than of carbohydrates, but partially confirm the weaker effect of fats.