Abstract
BackgroundThe objective of this study was to develop a scale to assess eating behaviors of school-aged children (6–12 years old) in China.MethodsTo develop the scale, a literature review and qualitative interviews were conducted. The draft scale contained 115 items and went through three evaluations among three groups of caregivers (n = 140, 400, 700) selected from suburban and urban kindergartens in Xi’an, Hanzhong, and Yanan, China, from March 2017 to October 2018. The psychometric properties of the scale were assessed using exploratory, confirmatory factor analysis, and variability analysis.ResultsThe final scale consisted of 46 items across eight dimensions including food fussiness, satiety responsiveness, food responsiveness, bad eating habits, susceptible diet, restrained eating, enjoyment of food, and junk food addiction. The total cumulative variance contribution rate was 52.16%. The scale and dimensions' Cronbach’s α coefficients, Guttman split-half reliability, and test- retest reliability were all above 0.65. The fitting indices for the confirmatory factor analysis were all close to 1. The scores for education of caregiver, family structure, and the body mass index of children were different among dimensions and groups, thus suggesting good discriminative utility.ConclusionsAll of the results indicated that the scale has good reliability and construct validity for evaluating the eating behaviors of school-aged children in China.
Highlights
The objective of this study was to develop a scale to assess eating behaviors of school-aged children (6–12 years old) in China
A total of 140 caregivers were recruited for the first investigation, and 115 (82.1%) questionnaires were valid
A total of 700 caregivers were recruited for the third investigation and 684 (97.7%) questionnaires were valid
Summary
The objective of this study was to develop a scale to assess eating behaviors of school-aged children (6–12 years old) in China. According to the standards of the Chinese Obesity Working Group (WGOC) in 2015, the prevalence of overweight and obesity in Chinese 7-year-old boys was 14.0% and 10.5%, respectively, and the corresponding prevalence in girls was 9.7% and 7.1% [4]. It is well known that overweight and obesity have substantial impacts on children’s health. Overweight and obese children are more likely to maintain the same adiposity levels throughout adolescence and adulthood [5, 6], and the adverse psychological and physical consequences of being overweight and obese in childhood may persist into adulthood [7]. Observational studies have evaluated behavioral risk factors and found that
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