Psychometric Properties of the Spanish Version of the Parental Feeding Style Questionnaire.

BACKGROUND: There are no validated instruments in Spain for measuring parental feeding styles. The aim was to validate the Parental Feeding Styles Questionnaires (PFSQ) in a Spanish sample. METHOD: A total of 523 mothers of 523 school-children participated. The children had a mean age of 4.4 years (SD = 1.3), with 51% being boys (M = 4.3 years, SD = 1.4) and 49% girls (M = 4.5 years, = SD 1.3). The PFSQ and the Comprehensive General Parenting Styles Questionnaire (CGPQ) were used. RESULTS: A model of four correlated factors was identified: Prompting/encouraging eating, emotional feeding, instrumental feeding, and control over eating. Cronbach's alpha for the subscales ranged from 0.64 to 0.86, and McDonald's Omega coefficient ranged from 0.66 to 0.86. Emotional feeding and prompting/encouraging eating had values above 0.70, control over eating had a value of 0.68 and instrumental feeding had an alpha coefficient of 0.64 and omega coefficient of 0.66. The factor structure was similar to the original and to other adapted versions. The Spanish sample used more control over eating and prompting/encouraging to eat. CONCLUSIONS: The adapted PFSQ is a suitable instrument for assessing the feeding styles of Spanish parents.

The Role of Regulation and Emotional Eating Behaviour in the Early Development of Obesity.

The purpose of our research was to explore the role of both parents' use of behavioural regulation with food and children's emotional self-regulation in young children with and without overweight/obesity. For this purpose, 123 participants (n = 62 boys and n = 61 girls) were recruited and classified into two groups by their Body Mass Index (BMI, non-overweight vs. overweight/obese) and into two age groups (four years and seven years). The children's parents/primary caregivers completed two scales of the Childhood Obesogenic Behaviours' Questionnaire (COBQ). The participants were measured and weighed to calculate their BMI to identify overweight, obesity, and non-overweight. The results showed that the means for children who were obese/overweight were significantly higher than those of children who were non-overweight for both the parents' behavioural regulation scale (non-overweight: M = 1.80, SD = 0.69; overweight/obesity: M = 2.94, SD = 0.85) and the child's emotional overeating scale (non-overweight: M = 1.47, SD = 0.56; overweight/obesity: M = 2.65, SD = 0.87). No statistically significant differences were found related to age (4 and 7 years), indicating that the potential impact of obesogenic behaviours starts early in development. Similarly, no differences by gender were found. Due to the implications of obesity for physical and mental health, and the high probability of maintaining this overweight status in the long term, family-based interventions to prevent obesity are highly advisable from birth.