Background Intuitive Eating is an adaptive dietary behavior characterized by a reliance on internal hunger and satiety cues instead of situational and emotional cues. The construct of intuitive eating is most often measured using the 23-item Intuitive Eating Scale-2 (IES-2).

Objectives To develop the Greek version of the IES-2 questionnaire and to examine its psychometric properties with data collected from 379 participants aged 18–74 years.

Methods Forward translations to Greek and backward translation to English were performed. The finalized translated version was administered to a sample of 379 adult, Greek speaking participants in Cyprus for psychometric validation, which included assessment of internal consistency, construct, and concurrent validity. Explanatory Factor Analysis (EFA) was applied to better understand the underlying factor structure of the 23 items in IES-2. Internal consistency was assessed by Cronbach’s alpha test in terms of the overall and sub-scales. The concurrent validity was assessed by evaluating the correlation among the IES-2 and the Eating Altitudes Test – 26 item (EAT-26) questionnaire.

Results A total of 379 participants completed the IES-2, EAT-26 questionnaire, and a demographic questionnaire. The median age of the participants was 31 (Q1=25, Q3=42) years old. About 49.7% of the participants were from the capital of Cyprus, Nicosia, 48.8% were unmarried, 92.9% had completed a higher education and about 40% were categorized as having a medium monthly average salary. Among the 379 participants of the study, 50.1% had normal Body Mass Index (BMI) category, while 24% and 21.4% were categorized as overweight or obese, respectively. EFA gave a three-factor structure with the total variance explained being 54.41%. Cronbach’s alpha as a measure of internal consistency was 0.87 for the IES-2 total score, as well as 0.90, 0.84, and 0.70 for the IES-2 subscale scores. The revised IES-2 total score was significantly correlated with EAT-26 total score (rs=-0.46, p<0.01). The factor loadings on more than one factor were excluded from the next analysis. The results of confirmatory factor analysis indicated that the factor structure on both scales had adequate fit following the elimination of items and addition of covariance.

Conclusion Our findings support the notion that intuitive eating is a viable concept and the IES a useful tool for assessing adult intuitive eating behaviors in empirical and epidemiological studies in the general Greek-Cypriot population.