Food addiction means being addicted to consuming high-calorie foods and is closely associated with deterioration of both mental and physical health. Although childhood adversity has been recognized as a risk factor for substance addiction, research examining its association with symptoms of food addiction remains limited; in particular, systematic understanding of the patterns of food addiction symptoms in Korea is still scarce. Building on prior evidence that food addiction symptoms are especially severe among women, this study investigated the effect of childhood adversity on food addiction and tested the mediating role of negative urgency in a sample of 391 adult women. About 11% participants met the diagnostic criteria of food addiction and results indicated that negative urgency mediated the relationship between childhood adversity and food addiction symptoms. Thus, the more the childhood adversity experiences, the higher the tendency to act impulsively during negative emotional states, and this increased negative urgency increases the risk for food addiction. This study has clinical implications such that an intervention focusing on reducing negative urgency can be effective for those who have an increased risk of food addiction due to childhood adversity.
