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Development and preliminary validation of a silhouette satiety scale for children
Myles S Faith1, Marjan Kermanshah, Harry R Kissileff
1Obesity Research Center, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, 1090 Amsterdam Avenue-14A, New York, NY 10025, USA. msf21@columbia.edu
Insights
Young children can use pictorial silhouettes to quantify feelings of satiety. This study shows children aged 4-6 can report hunger and fullness levels using visual aids, suggesting improved methods for assessing child satiety.
Area of Science:
- Child Psychology
- Nutritional Science
- Sensory Perception
Background:
- Quantifying subjective feelings like satiety in young children presents challenges.
- Existing methods may not adequately capture children's internal states of hunger and fullness.
Purpose of the Study:
- To assess young children's ability to use pictorial silhouettes for quantifying satiety.
- To gather preliminary data on the validity of using visual aids for reporting fullness levels in children.
Main Methods:
- A study involving 20 children aged 4-6 years.
- Utilized a three-stage approach: defining hunger/fullness, testing quantitative discrimination, and validating silhouettes via imagined eating scenarios.
Main Results:
- Most children associated stomach sensations with hunger (90%) and fullness (70%).
- Children demonstrated ability to perform quantitative discriminations with food stimuli (90-100%).
- Reported increasing satiety levels corresponding to imagined eating situations.
Conclusions:
- Young children can quantitatively report satiety using appropriate tools like pictorial silhouettes.
- The findings suggest children's capacity for reporting internal states may be underestimated.
- This method offers a promising approach for future research on child appetite and eating behaviors.
Abstract:
The purpose of this study was to determine whether young children are capable of using pictorial silhouettes to quantify feelings of satiety and provide preliminary data on the validity of this method. Subjects were 20 children, 4-6 years old, recruited from a preschool. We hypothesized that subjects would be able to use the silhouettes to communicate different levels of satiety when imagining eating situations associated with different levels of fullness. The study was conducted in three stages: Stage 1 probed children's spontaneous definitions of hunger and fullness and identified specific eating situations they associated with these feelings; Stage 2 tested whether children could perform basic quantitative discriminations applied to food-related stimuli; Stage 3 validated the silhouettes using an 'imagined eating situation' in which subjects used the silhouettes to rate how full their belly would feel in three distinct eating situations associated with different levels of satiety. Main results indicated that (1) most children readily associated the stomach with feelings of hunger (90%) and fullness (70%), (2) 80% of the children said they felt fullest after eating a meal, (3) 90-100% of the children were able to perform basic quantitative discriminations using food-related stimuli, and (4) children reported increasing feelings of satiety for situations associated with hunger, partial satiety, and satiety. Children were generally consistent in their ratings across testing sessions, although responses were less consistent for intermediary satiety levels. Young children may be more capable of quantitatively reporting feelings of satiety than is commonly believed, if appropriate experimental materials are used.