Parental practices perceived by children using a French version of the Kids' Child Feeding Questionnaire

About 18% of 6-11-year-old French children are overweight, of whom 3.3% are obese. Parental feeding practices, especially restriction and pressure-to-eat, seem to promote overeating in children. Since no tool was available for the perception of parental feeding practices of French children, our aim was to validate a French version of the Kids'Child Feeding Questionnaire (KCFQ, Carper, Orlet Fischer, & Birch, 2000), and to determine the relationship between KCFQ's dimensions and children's standardised body mass index (BMI z-scores). The questionnaire was completed by 240 normal-weighted or overweight children between the age of 9 and 11. The validation was based on a confirmatory factor analysis. The internal consistency of factors was confirmed using Cronbach's coefficients. After deleting some items (3 for the pressure-to-eat subscale and 3 for the restriction subscale), the two-factor model (pressure-to-eat, restriction) provided an acceptable fit (χ² (34)=64; RMSEA=.06; CFI=0.93; NNFI=.90), and satisfactory internal consistency. Children's perception of restriction was significantly and positively correlated with BMI z-scores (r=36, p<.001), whereas their perception of pressure-to-eat was not significantly associated with BMI z-scores (r=-.09, p=.24). This scale appears to be a sound tool for highlighting children's perceptions of parental feeding practices, and their links to weight status.