Combination and adaptation of two tools to assess parental feeding practices in pre-school children

Abstract

Objective: To test a combined version of the Child Feeding Questionnaire and the expanded concept of parental control ("covert" and "overt") among Portuguese preschool children.

Methods: The final questionnaire comprised 38 items and 9 subscales. The translated questionnaire was self-administered to 854 mothers of 4 year-old children from the Generation XXI birth cohort. Maternal and children's weight and height and socio-demographic characteristics were measured. The global goodness of fit was evaluated by confirmatory factor analysis. Cronbach's alpha was used to measure the reliability of subscales. Construct validity was tested for different dimensions.

Results: A 9-factor model was obtained, after excluding five "restriction" items and 1 "overt control" item, with a global goodness of fit (CFI=0.961, TLI=0.973, RMSEA=0.057). Cronbach's alpha ranged from 0.684 to 0.889. Children's body mass index (BMI) was significantly and positively related with "perceived parental weight", "perceived child's weight" and "concern about child's weight", and inversely related with "pressure to eat", supporting the theoretical hypothesis. Maternal BMI was positively related with "perceived parental weight".

Conclusions: Our study confirmed the usefulness of this questionnaire for Portuguese preschool children, and supports the need of reformulating the restriction dimension and keeping separately the overt and covert control dimensions.

Keywords: Child Feeding Questionnaire; Childhood obesity; Covert control; Overt control.