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Validation of the Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire for Children (DEBQ-C) for use with Spanish children
R M Baños1, A Cebolla, E Etchemendy
1University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain. banos@uv.es
Introduction:
The Dutch Eating Behaviour Questionnaire for children was developed by Van Strien and Oosterveld (2008) to measure three different eating behaviors (emotional eating, restrained eating and external eating); it is an adaptation of the DEBQ for adults.
Objective:
The purpose of this study is to analyze the psychometric properties of the Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire for Children (DEBQ-C) with a Spanish sample.
Method:
The DEBQ-C was administered to 473 children (240 boys and 233 girls), from 10 to 14 years old. The sample included a Clinical Overweight Group (COG; n = 81) comprising children who were receiving weight loss treatments, a Non Clinical Overweight Group (NCOG, n = 31) comprising children who were overweight but not in treatment, and a Normal Weight Group (NWG, n = 280).
Results:
Results showed that the DEBQ-C had acceptable internal consistency (a = 0.70). Temporal stability was good for "External Eating" and "Restrained Eating" scales. Confirmatory factor analysis showed that the three-factor solution had good fit indices. Furthermore, the clinical overweight participants scored significantly higher on "External Eating" and "Restrained Eating" compared to the normal weight children.
Conclusion:
The DEBQ-C proved to be an effective instrument for researching children's eating behaviors.
