Validation of the Adult Eating Behavior Questionnaire in an Italian Community Sample.

(1) Background: Appetitive traits in adults can be measured through the Adult Eating Behavior Questionnaire (AEBQ), a questionnaire adapted from the Child Eating Behavior Questionnaire (CEBQ). The AEBQ has been validated in several countries. The aim of the present study was to explore and validate the factor structure of the Italian version of the AEBQ. Furthermore, convergent validity and correlations between factors and BMI were explored to assess its criterion validity. (2) Methods: Participants (N = 624, mean age of 32.08 ± 14.94 years) completed the AEBQ, the Eating Attitude Test (EAT-40), and the Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire (DEBQ). They also self-reported demographic and anthropometric data. A Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was used to test three different alternative models that emerged in previous validations. (3) Results: The CFA revealed a good model fit (RMSEA = 0.0634, TLI = 0.894, CFI = 0.907) for the 7-factor structure, without the Hunger items, showing a valid and reliable (Cronbach's α > 0.7) structure. Convergent and divergent validity of the AEBQ yielded favorable results, and relationships between the AEBQ and BMI factors revealed that the Food Approach traits were positively associated with BMI. (4) Conclusions: Finally, this study provides initial support for the use of the AEBQ as a valid and reliable tool to measure a wide range of appetitive traits in the adult Italian population.

Teachers' report of sense of time in kindergarten predicts children's time-processing skills in first grade.

The main aim of this longitudinal study was to evaluate if a questionnaire measuring the sense of time, filled in by teachers and parents in the last year of kindergarten, was able to predict children's time-processing skills at the end of 1st grade. The sample included 131 children (initial mean age = 4.77 ± 0.29 years) tested three times in a 2-year period with tasks of time reproduction, time discrimination, and comparison of durations. One of their parents and teachers filled in a questionnaire about children's sense of time both in kindergarten and 1st grade. The teacher version of the questionnaire administered in kindergarten was able to predict most of the time-processing tasks at the end of 1st grade. The parent version of the questionnaire was not able to predict children's performance in these tasks. Different developmental trajectories of time reproduction and time discrimination were observed. This study supports the role of preschool teachers as skilled evaluators of children's time-processing skills.

The neuropsychological correlates of (sluggish) cognitive tempo scales in school-aged children.

Sluggish Cognitive Tempo (SCT) is a neuropsychiatric construct including lethargy, behavioral sluggishness, and confusion. A growing number of studies in the literature suggest that this set of symptoms refers to neuropsychological constructs such as sustained attention. However, studies focusing on SCT and its neuropsychological correlates in developmental age are scarce. The present study aims to fill this gap. The Child and Adolescent Behavior Inventory (CABI - Teacher and Parent versions, also including the school functioning scale, and the Child Concentration Inventory (CCI-2) were administered to a sample of 128 Italian primary-school children (57.6% F, mean age 8.81, SD 1.07); the neuropsychological constructs involved in the study were sustained attention and reaction times to two computerized tasks. Bivariate non-parametric correlation analyses yielded significant negative associations between teacher-referred SCT and measures of sustained attention (e.g., the Attentional Network Test and the Hearts and Flowers task) as well as CABI-T school-functioning scale; a small-to-moderate positive correlation was found between CABI-T SCT scores and mean reaction times, as a measure of the slowness of behavioral responses on the Attentional Network Test: this result would appear to represent a fine operationalization of the SCT-characteristic of behavioral sluggishness. Implications of these results for operationalizing the SCT construct in developmental age are discussed.

Validation of the Italian version of the Power of Food Scale in the adult population.

PURPOSE: The Power of Food Scale (PFS) is designed to measure the personal susceptibility to highly processed and palatable foods. The purpose of this study was to validate the Italian version of PFS (PFS-It) in the adult population. METHODS: Data were obtained from 536 Italian adults aged between 18 and 86 years. The PFS-It and the Binge Eating Scale (BES) were administered to all participants. RESULTS: The factorial structure of the PFS-It was investigated using a CFA that returned excellent fit indices. The Cronbach's alpha coefficients for the PFS-It total score and for its subscales (Food Available, Food Present, and Food Tasted), as well as for the BES total score, revealed good to moderate reliability. Finally, PFS-It was positively and significantly correlated with BES. CONCLUSION: To our knowledge, this is the first study to propose the norms and psychometric characteristics of the Power of Food Scale in an Italian population. The results show that PFS-it is a valid and reliable instrument for the measurement of Hedonic Hunger in an adult Italian population. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Level V, cross-sectional descriptive study.