The Food Motivation Battery [FMB]: preliminary validation of an acute, item-specific measure of food motivation in young adults

Food motivation, defined as the amount of effort an individual is willing to exert to obtain food, influences energy intake and body weight. However, standard measures typically assess limited forms of effort within laboratory paradigms and do not capture variation across food types, restricting their ecological validity. We developed and preliminarily validated the Food Motivation Battery [FMB], a novel questionnaire assessing multiple dimensions of food-specific motivation. A college sample (n = 758) completed the FMB after selecting one high-energy-density (ED) sweet (e.g., cookie, brownie, or ice cream) and one low-ED fruit (e.g., watermelon, strawberries, apple, or banana). Participants answered food-specific motivation questions, including willingness to do finger taps (low effort), jumping jacks (high effort), and to pay for 20-min hypothetical food delivery, alongside established appetite measures (liking, wanting, prospective consumption). Eating behavior traits, subjective current appetite, arousal state, and past 7-day intake were assessed for construct validity. We evaluated differences in mean FMB scores by sex and BMI, examined associations with related constructs, and assessed intercorrelations among FMB items. Males scored higher on willingness to do jumping jacks for fruits than females. BMI was positively associated with motivation for sweets. Participants with overweight or obesity reported higher willingness to pay for sweets compared to those with lower weight. FMB scores were positively associated with food approach traits, hunger, desire to eat, boredom, and recent intake of sweets and fruits, and negatively associated with food avoidance traits and fullness. Novel motivation items were moderately correlated with established appetite items, suggesting they capture related but unique constructs. Findings support the FMB as a brief, multidimensional tool that complements existing appetite assessments and may enhance evaluation of food-specific motivation in clinical and population-based settings.