Cross-cultural validity of the Intuitive Eating Scale-2. Psychometric evaluation in a sample of the general French population

•We adapted the Intuitive Eating Scale-2 to the French language and population.•We evaluated its construct validity and its reliability.•The French IES-2 demonstrated good psychometric properties.•It was negatively correlated to cognitive restraint and emotional eating.•Women had lower scores than men and dieters had lower scores than non-dieters. Intuitive eating is an adaptive dietary behavior that emphasizes eating in response to physiological hunger and satiety cues. The Intuitive Eating Scale-2 (IES-2) measures such attitudes and behaviors. The aim of the present study was to adapt the IES-2 to the French context and to test its psychometric properties in 335 women and 297 men participating in the NutriNet-Santé study. We evaluated the construct validity of the IES-2 by testing hypotheses with regard to its factor structure, relationships with scores of the revised 21-item Three Factor Eating Questionnaire and the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression scale, and differences between “a priori” relevant subgroups. First, the exploratory factor analysis revealed three main dimensions: Eating for Physical Rather than Emotional Reasons, Reliance on Hunger and Satiety Cues, and Unconditional Permission to Eat. Second-order confirmatory factor analysis upheld the 3-factor solution influenced by a broader intuitive eating dimension. IES-2 total score was negatively related to cognitive restraint (r = −0.31, P