Abstract
Eating behaviors traits are present from early infancy and are associated with a greater risk for obesity in childhood. The Baby Eating Behaviour Questionnaire (BEBQ) is a tool developed to measure eating behavior in infants. The aim of this study was to (i) translate, (ii) culturally adapt, and (iii) evaluate the psychometric properties of the BEBQ in a Chilean sample. BEBQ was translated into Chilean-Spanish using a forward and back-translation process. Translations were cross-checked for cultural interpretability with mothers and inconsistencies were resolved with an expert panel. 101 dyads were recruited when infants were aged five months. Mothers completed the BEBQ and Infants were weighed and measured. Subscale scores were calculated for BEBQ subscales. Factor analysis was used to identify the structure of the BEBQ. Internal consistency was assessed using Cronbach’s alpha (α). Factor analysis identified a good fit for a 4-factor structure of appetite factors, with moderate to good internal consistency: “food responsiveness” (α = 0.83), “enjoyment of food” (α = 0.77), satiety responsiveness (α = 0.61), except for slowness in eating (α = 0.58). All items loaded onto the original factor structure with exception of items 5 and 6, that load on to slowness in eating (ns). Boys (n = 43;42%) reported higher general appetite scores in relation to girls (p-value = 0.007). Infants with obesity BMI z-scores (n = 17; 19%) had lower satiety responsiveness scores compared to infants in the healthy weight range (p-value = 0.006). This study describes the psychometric properties of the Chilean Spanish BEBQ and supports the validity of the factor structure and internal consistency in a population sample of Chilean infants.
Level V: Evidence obtained from a cross-sectional descriptive study.
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Data availability
The datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Abbreviations
- BEBQ:
-
Baby eating behavior questionnaire
- CEBQ:
-
Child eating behavior questionnaire
- BMI:
-
Body mass index
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Agencia Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo ANID, Vinculación Internacional, Proyecto REDI170368.
The authors acknowledge the help of the entire team of the San Sebastian University, Chile and the network Iceberg “International Collaborative Eating Behaviour Research Group”.
Funding
This study was supported by the National research and development agency through the International Cooperation Program, PCI Grant Nº REDI170368.
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Term | Obregón AM | Valladares M | Guzman E | Pettinelli P | Hunot C | Smith A | Llewellyn C | G Goldfield | Definition |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Methodology | X | X | x | Development or design of methodology; creation of models | |||||
Software | Programming, software development; designing computer programs; implementation of the computer code and supporting algorithms; testing of existing code components | ||||||||
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Formal analysis | X | X | X | X | Application of statistical, mathematical, computational, or other formal techniques to analyze or synthesize study data | ||||
Investigation | X | X | Conducting a research and investigation process, specifically performing the experiments, or data/evidence collection | ||||||
Resources | X | Provision of study materials, reagents, materials, patients, laboratory samples, animals, instrumentation, computing resources, or other analysis tools | |||||||
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The study protocol was approved by the Research Scientific Ethics Committee of San Sebastián University.
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What is already known on this subject?
The BEBQ is a new instrument for the assessment of infant eating behavior, but it is only available in English and has not been validated in a Chilean sample.
What does your study add?
This study demonstrated good psychometric properties of the BEBQ Chilean version with a Chilean sample. Also, this tool could be used for the assessment of eating behavior in the Chilean health system.
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Obregón, A.M., Valladares, M., Guzmán-Gutierrez, E. et al. Validation of the baby eating behaviour questionnaire in a Chilean population. Curr Psychol 43, 5377–5387 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-023-04679-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-023-04679-x