Validation of the Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire for Children (DEBQ-C) for use with Spanish children.

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.