Eating attitude test factors in an unselected undergraduate population

Abstract

The Eating Attitudes Test (EAT) was given to 310 male and 302 female undergraduate volunteers who represented a cross section of students enrolled at a regional university. The responses of the 612 subjects to the EAT items were factor-analyzed separately by sex using a principal components procedure and a varimax rotation. Both males and females produced a six-factor structure which accounted for approximately 40% of the variance (39.8% males, 42.4% females). Three factors were common to the sexes, and each sex produced three sex-specific factors. The implications of these findings for the use of the EAT scale as a measure of attitudes toward food and eating in a nonanorexic population are discussed.