Motivations to eat: Scale development and validation

Objective: To validate a measure of psychological motivations to eat based on a fourcategory model of motivations for alcohol use (Cooper, 1994). Motivations specified by this model are: to cope with negative affect, to be social, to comply with others’ expectations, and to enhance pleasure. Method: In Study 1, 40 respondents were queried in an open-ended format about their reasons for eating; responses were content-coded to determine if they fit into the four theorized categories. In Study 2, an item pool was generated based on responses from Study 1, and random halves of a sample of 812 college students were used to test and then validate the hypothesized factor structure. Results: As expected, the final inventory yielded the four theorized categories. The factor structure was generally invariant across gender, and the resulting Motivations to Eat subscales uniquely predicted restrictive eating, bingeing, and purging. Discussion: Prior eating research has focused mainly on coping and compliance motivations. The present study identified four distinct motivations to eat that potentially are important for understanding healthy and disordered eating.