Food Disgust Scale: Spanish Version

Leonor García-Gómez; César Romero-Rebollar; Christina Hartmann; Michael Siegrist; Guillaume Ferreira; Ruth Gutierrez-Aguilar; Salvador Villalpando; Gustavo Pacheco-Lopez

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00165

Food Disgust Scale: Spanish Version

Front Psychol. 2020 Feb 7:11:165. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00165. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Leonor García-Gómez^{1

2}, César Romero-Rebollar¹, Christina Hartmann³, Michael Siegrist³, Guillaume Ferreira⁴, Ruth Gutierrez-Aguilar^{5

6}, Salvador Villalpando⁷, Gustavo Pacheco-Lopez^{1

3}

Affiliations

¹ Health Sciences Department, Metropolitan Autonomous University (UAM), Campus Lerma, Lerma, Mexico.
² Department of Research in Smoking and COPD, National Institute of Respiratory Diseases (INER) Ismael Cosio Villegas, Mexico City, Mexico.
³ Department of Health Sciences and Technology, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
⁴ NutriNeuro, UMR INRA 1286, University of Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France.
⁵ Research Division, School of Medicine, National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), Mexico City, Mexico.
⁶ Laboratory of Metabolic Diseases: Obesity and Diabetes, Children's Hospital of Mexico (HIM) Federico Gómez, Mexico City, Mexico.
⁷ Department of Gastroenterology & Nutrition, Children's Hospital of Mexico (HIM) Federico Gómez, Mexico City, Mexico.

Abstract

Introduction: The Food Disgust Scale (FDS) was recently developed and validated in Swiss adult population. This study aims to: (1) validate the FDS for the first time in a Spanish-speaking Mexican population, (2) correlate food disgust sensitivity with picky eating measures, and (3) explore the association between food disgust sensitivity and body mass index (BMI).

Materials and methods: A Spanish version of the FDS (FDS-Sp) and its short version (FDS-Sp short) were tested with confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) in order to test the original item/factor structure. Bivariate correlations were performed to determine the association between FDS-Sp/FDS-Sp short scores and picky eating. Lastly, hierarchical linear regression analysis was carried out to determine the relationship between food disgust sensitivity and BMI.

Results: The factor structure of the FDS was replicated and acceptable internal consistency values were observed for FDS-Sp subscales (α varied between 0.781 and 0.955). Moreover, FDS-Sp subscales and FDS-Sp short were correlated with picky eating. Higher score in VEGI subscale of the FDS-Sp was a significant predictor for higher BMI, explaining 4% of the variance.

Conclusion: FDS-Sp is a useful, reliable and robust psychometric instrument to measure the sensitivity to unpleasant food situations in a Mexican adult Spanish-speaking population. A relationship between food disgust sensitivity and picky eating, selective eating behaviors and neophobia in Mexicans was confirmed. BMI is multifactorial and only one subscale of FDS-Sp is a significant predictor for BMI status. These results are helpful to continue exploring food disgust in diverse populations.

Keywords: BMI; Food Disgust Scale; Mexico; aversion; disgust sensitivity; picky eating.