Developing and testing adapted measures of children’s self-efficacy, intentions, and behaviors associated with childhood obesity

Abstract

ABSTRACTUpdated reliable and valid instruments are needed to evaluate interventions to combat childhood obesity. The Healthy Living for Kids Survey (HLKS) includes adapted existing measures of children’s physical activity, nutritional behaviors, dietary habits, nutritional intentions, screen time behaviors, and self-efficacy regarding nutrition, physical activity, and screen time. 96 fourth and fifth graders completed the HLKS. Internal reliability was minimally acceptable for five scales (α = 0.63–0.80), with adequate test-retest reliability coefficients (r = 0.63–0.78) for three of these scales. The Dietary Habits, Nutritional Self-Efficacy, and Nutritional Intentions scales demonstrated acceptable reliability and validity at this stage of development.