PONE-D-21-08991

French validation of the Weight Efficacy Life-Style questionnaire (WEL): Links with mood, self-esteem and stress among the general population and a clinical sample of individuals with overweight and obesity

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Plasonja,

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Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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3. Please include additional information regarding the survey or questionnaire used in the study and ensure that you have provided sufficient details that others could replicate the analyses. For instance, if you developed a questionnaire as part of this study and it is not under a copyright more restrictive than CC-BY, please include a copy, in both the original language and English, as Supporting Information.

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5. Thank you for stating the following in the Acknowledgments Section of your manuscript: 

The authors would like to give special thanks to Michel Dubourdeaux (R&D Innovation Director at PiLeJe), Christophe Guyomar (Chief Digital Officer at PiLeJe) for their administrative and technical support and Claude Blondeau (Head of Scientific Communication at PiLeJe) for editing the manuscript. Thanks are also addressed to Dr Dominique Périn Calvão for the translation of the MDI, Dr Marilou Bruchon-Schweitzer, Dr Eve Villemur and Dr Gérard Ostermann for their contribution to the translation of the WEL and SSES scales. Anna Brytek-Matera acknowledges financial support by the „Excellence Initiative – Research University” program for years 2020-2026 of the University of Wroclaw.

We note that you have provided funding information that is not currently declared in your Funding Statement. However, funding information should not appear in the Acknowledgments section or other areas of your manuscript. We will only publish funding information present in the Funding Statement section of the online submission form. 

Please remove any funding-related text from the manuscript and let us know how you would like to update your Funding Statement. Currently, your Funding Statement reads as follows: 

Anna Brytek-Matera acknowledges financial support by the „Excellence Initiative – Research University” program for years 2020-2026 of the University of Wroclaw.

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: Dear Dr,

I have gone through the manuscript and feel the manuscript was well written by the authors in this work on French validation of the Weight Efficacy Life-Style questionnaire (WEL): Links with mood, self-esteem and stress among the general population and a clinical sample of individuals with overweight and obesity. However, a minor revision is needed to improve the quality of this paper.

Abstract: In the design, the authors mentioned multiple statistical analyses. Please report the most important/significant; this will improve the result section, which in the current version is ard to understand where the major benefits happened.

Introduction:

Please clarify following question into Introduction section:

• What is the main question addressed by the research?

• How original is the topic? What does it add to the subject area compared with other published material?

• Please show the gap clearly. What is already known and what new knowledge this work will provide?

Discussion:

What are the policy implications of these findings? How can your findings inform improvements in existing nutritional interventions? What is the barrier to incorporating its use in public health?

If a public health manager wants to scale up this intervention, would this be feasible?

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Reviewer #1: No

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French validation of the Weight Efficacy Life-Style questionnaire (WEL): Links with mood, self-esteem and stress among the general population and a clinical sample of individuals with overweight and obesity

PONE-D-21-08991R1

Dear Dr. Plasonja,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

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If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org.

Kind regards,

Antonio Palazón-Bru, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: This is an interesting study and the authors have collected a unique dataset using appropriate methodology. The paper is generally well written and structured. The authors replied to all comments well. So, this manuscript can be accepted for publication in this journal.

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No