The Children's Eating Behaviour Questionnaire: factorial validity and association with Body Mass Index in Dutch children

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The Children's Eating Behaviour Questionnaire: factorial validity and association with Body Mass Index in Dutch children aged 6–7 Ester FC Sleddens1,3, Stef PJ Kremers*1,3 and Carel Thijs2,3 Address: 1Department of Health Education and Promotion, Maastricht University, PO Box 616, 6200 MD, Maastricht, the Netherlands, 2Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health and Primary Care (Caphri), Maastricht, the Netherlands and 3Nutrition and Toxicology Research Institute Maastricht (NUTRIM), Maastricht University, PO Box 616, 6200 MD, Maastricht, the Netherlands Email: Ester FC Sleddens - [email protected]; Stef PJ Kremers* - [email protected] ; Carel Thijs - [email protected] * Corresponding author

Published: 20 October 2008 International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity 2008, 5:49

doi:10.1186/1479-5868-5-49

Received: 7 July 2008 Accepted: 20 October 2008

This article is available from: http://www.ijbnpa.org/content/5/1/49 © 2008 Sleddens et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract Background: The Children's Eating Behaviour Questionnaire (CEBQ) is a parent-report measure designed to assess variation in eating style among children. In the present study we translated the CEBQ and examined its factor structure in a sample of parents of 6- and 7-year-old children in the Netherlands. Additionally, associations between the mean scale scores of the instrument and children's body mass index (BMI) were assessed. Methods: In total, 135 parents of primary school children aged 6 and 7 completed the questionnaire (response rate 41.9%). Children's BMI was converted into standardised z-scores, adjusted for child gender and age to examine the association between mean scale scores and child weight status. Results: Results generally confirmed the theoretical factor structure, with acceptable internal reliability and between-subscale correlations. Linear regression analyses revealed that BMI z-scores were positively associated with the 'food approach' subscales of the CEBQ (food responsiveness, enjoyment of food, emotional overeating) (β's 0.15 to 0.22) and negatively with 'food avoidant' subscales (satiety responsiveness, slowness in eating, emotional undereating, and food fussiness) (β's -0.09 to -0.25). Significant relations with child BMI z-scores were found for food responsiveness (p = 0.02), enjoyment of food (p = 0.03), satiety responsiveness (p = 0.01) and slowness in eating (p = 0.01). Conclusion: The results support the use of the CEBQ as a psychometrically sound tool for assessing children's eating behaviours in Dutch children and the study demonstrates its applicability in overweight-related studies.

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