Análise das propriedades de medida da Intuitive Eating Scale-3 para adolescentes brasileiros

Abstract

The Intuitive Eating Scale-3 was developed to assess intuitive eating, an eating behavior in which individuals rely on their body’s physiological needs rather than on dietary rules or external influences. The scale therefore measures an individual’s tendency to: trust internal hunger and satiety cues, reject the dieting mentality, attend to the pleasure of eating, and respect their body. Although originally developed for American adults, there is currently no evidence regarding its measurement properties in Brazilian adolescents—a population known to be at elevated risk for the development of body image disturbances and eating disorders. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the measurement properties of the IES-3 in Brazilian adolescents. This is a methodological, quantitative, cross-sectional study, which included 295 Brazilian adolescents aged 12 to 18 years. In addition to the IES-3, participants completed a set of measures assessing disordered eating, body dissatisfaction, body appreciation, and body acceptance by others, to evaluate convergent validity. Scale reliability was also assessed through internal consistency analyses. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses supported the original fourfactor structure of the scale (Unconditional permission to eat, Eating for physical reasons, Reliance on hunger and satiety cues, and Body–food choice congruence) after excluding one item. The IES-3 factors were positively associated with measures of body appreciation and body acceptance by others, and negatively associated with measures of disordered eating and body dissatisfaction, indicating convergent validity. Finally, good internal consistency was observed for most factors, with the exception of the Eating for physical reasons factor. Taken together, these findings indicate adequate validity and reliability of the IES-3 for Brazilian adolescents. The measure enables future research on intuitive eating and its associations with physical and mental health outcomes in a population that is particularly vulnerable to various forms of psychopathology, including eating disorders and body image disturbances.