Development and Preliminary Validation of a Self-Report Measure of Sensory and Moral Disgust Toward Perceived Unhealthy Food.

BACKGROUND

Disgust toward perceived unhealthy food has been largely overlooked in understanding the development and persistence of disordered eating, partly due to a lack of measurement tools. To address this gap, we developed new measures of disgust toward perceived unhealthy food.

METHOD

We evaluated the psychometric properties of a new self-report tool for measuring disgust toward perceived unhealthy food. Participants in Sample 1 (undergraduate students; n = 352) and Sample 2 (community members; n = 549) were either actively following a healthy eating plan or believed they were maintaining a healthy lifestyle. They completed questionnaires on disgust toward perceived unhealthy food, eating disorder symptoms, and psychopathology. To assess convergent and discriminant validity, in Sample 2, participants also completed trait measures of food-related, moral, sexual, and pathogen disgust, as well as self-disgust.

RESULTS

Exploratory structural equation modeling revealed four types of disgust across both samples: disgust for the sensory aspects of unhealthy food, disgust toward people who eat unhealthy food, disgust for unhealthy food due to health risks, and disgust toward unhealthy food promotion. All types, except for promotion-related disgust, were linked to eating disorder symptoms and psychopathology above and beyond trait food disgust sensitivity. Sensory disgust for unhealthy food was associated with other disgust measures, excluding moral disgust sensitivity. Health-risk and promotion-related disgust were linked to other disgust measures but not self-disgust.

CONCLUSION

Findings extend knowledge on the types of disgust toward perceived unhealthy food in relation to eating disorder symptoms and psychopathology. Results are discussed in terms of future validation research.