1. Introduction
Obesity has reached epidemic proportions in Europe and is still escalating, posing an increasing health challenge. According to the WHO Regional Office for Europe [
1], obesity and overweight affect 7,9% of children under the age of five (4.4 million children) and one in three school-aged children. Portugal is one of the countries in Europe with the highest prevalence of childhood obesity and overweight, with 31.6% and 13.5% of children being overweight and obese, respectively [
2,
3]. Overweight and obese children tend to remain so in adulthood [
4,
5,
6] and are more likely to develop non-transmissible diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, musculoskeletal disorders, and cancer [
7,
8,
9]. Thus, it is of great interest to investigate modifiable risk factors for obesity in infancy and childhood.
In this sense, a large body of evidence shows that parental feeding practices influence children’s eating behaviors and weight status [
10,
11,
12,
13,
14]. Children are born with the ability to self-regulate their energy intake [
15,
16,
17]. Nevertheless, as children get older, this ability decreases due to external influences [
18,
19,
20,
21,
22], namely parental feeding practices [
23,
24]. Therefore, feeding practices can either support or undermine children’s ability to self-regulate their internal hunger and satiety cues, depending on whether they are responsive or non-responsive to these cues [
25]. Responsive feeding practices refer to parents’ capacity to correctly recognize and respond to these cues, thus positively influencing children’s self-regulation of energy intake. On the contrary, non-responsive feeding practices refer to the use of excessive controlling and coercive feeding practices that teach children to eat for reasons unrelated to their appetite and ignore their hunger and satiety cues [
23,
26,
27,
28,
29,
30]. These practices can compromise children’s inborn capacity to regulate their energy intake and contribute to poor diet quality and excessive weight gain [
12,
26,
27,
29,
31,
32,
33].
Most studies have focused on non-responsive feeding practices, such as pressure to eat and restriction [
34,
35,
36,
37,
38,
39], with responsive feeding practices being less studied. As such, the Child Feeding Questionnaire (CFQ) [
40] has been one of the most widely used instruments to measure parental feeding practices; however, this instrument assesses only three feeding practices: monitoring, pressure to eat, and restriction (with the two last ones non-responsive practices). Therefore, researchers have highlighted the importance of including other less controlling and coercive feeding practices, especially those associated with healthy outcomes [
33,
41]. With the development of the Comprehensive Feeding Practices Questionnaire (CFPQ) [
42], the CFQ and other previous measures were expanded. The CFPQ goes beyond controlling feeding practices, including a broader range of feeding practices, namely those that are responsive such as modeling healthy eating, teaching about nutrition, and encouraging balance and variety [
42]. Thus, the CFPQ allows for a better description of parental feeding practices.
Given the high prevalence of obesity and overweight among Portuguese children [
2], it is important to study and understand parental feeding practices. Even so, there is a lack of valid measures for the Portuguese population that assess feeding practices. To our knowledge, only two measures were validated in Portugal – the CFQ [
43,
44] and the Parental Feeding Style Questionnaire [
45] – which focus more on controlling feeding practices, while one – the Children’s Intake Self-Regulation Feeding Practices Scale [
46] – was created and developed in Portugal. The CFPQ has been validated in other countries (e.g., [
47,
48,
49,
50,
51]), but not yet among the Portuguese population, which limits its generalizability and use in other cultures. Since feeding practices can be influenced by ethnicity [
52,
53], it is necessary to validate measures for different populations.
Thus, the purpose of this study is to validate the CFPQ with Portuguese parents of 2- to 8-year-old children using a confirmatory factor analysis and examine its psychometric properties. If the original CFPQ factor structure is not confirmed, we will conduct an exploratory factor analysis to identify an alternative factor structure.
4. Discussion
This study aimed to examine the original factor structure proposed by Musher-Eizenman and Holub [
42] of the Comprehensive Feeding Practices Questionnaire in a Portuguese sample of caregivers of children between 2 and 8 years old. Confirmatory factor analyses showed the lack of fit of the original 12-factor and 49-item model in our sample, which is in line with previous findings from other validation studies in other cultures (e.g., [
47,
48,
50,
51,
61,
62,
63]). These studies proposed different structures for the CFPQ. For example, Melbye et al. [
64] study with a sample of parents of 10- to 12-year-olds in Norway suggested a 10-factor model, including 42 items. In New Zealand, Haszard et al. [
48] identified a 5-factor model with 32 items in a sample of parents of 4- to 6-year-olds. Shohaimi et al. [
51] study with Malaysian mothers of 7- to 9-year-olds identified a 12-factor model with 39 items. The study of Mais et al. [
50] with Brazilian parents of 5- to 9-year-olds proposed a 6-factor model, including 42 items, which was confirmed in another sample of Brazilian parents of 2- to 5-year-olds [
63]. In Jordan, Al-Qerem et al. [
47] identified a 11-factor model with 43 items in a sample of mothers of 6- to 12-year-olds. In our study, exploratory factor analysis suggested that the most suitable structure was 29 items distributed over 8 factors: Monitoring, Emotion Regulation, Restriction for Weight Control, Modeling, Pressure, Restriction for Health, Environment, and Involvement.
The different CFPQ structures identified over several validation studies could be explained by cultural and social differences but also methodological differences. Indeed, these studies were conducted with parents of children of different group ages, which could influence the final models of the CFPQ. As demonstrated by Saltzman et al. [
65], some feeding practices could be more relevant to parents at different developmental periods. Thus, their reliance on particular feeding practices may change as children grow. In their study, Saltzman et al. [
65] analyzed the factor structure of the CFPQ across two-time points. At Time 1, when children were, on average, 37 months of age, a 7-factor model was deemed the most appropriate fit. At Time 2, at 57 months of age, a 5-factor model was the most suitable structure. For instance, when children were about 37 months of age, the Emotion Regulation and Food as Reward subscales were found, but not at 57 months. In this sense, these feeding practices could be more appropriate for parents of toddlers, and their use may decrease as children age [
48,
65]. On the other hand, the Restriction for Health subscale emerged only at Time 2, suggesting that this feeding practice could be more appropriate for parents of preschoolers [
65]. Other feeding practices, including, Teaching about Nutrition, Encourage Balance and Variety, and Child Control, could be more suitable for parents of school-aged children [
47,
48,
65]. This could explain why, in the present study, these last three feeding practices were not found since most of our sample was composed of 3- to 5-year-olds (86.8%). In this sense, it is unsurprising that we also didn’t find the Food as Reward subscale, as the proportion of toddlers in our sample was small.
Compared to the original CFPQ 12-factor model [
42], in our 8-factor model most of the items loaded in their respective factor. The subscales Monitoring, Emotion Regulation, and Pressure had the same composition as the original factor. The subscales Restriction for Weight Control and Restriction for Health lost two (Item 18 “I have to be sure that my child does not eat too many high-fat foods”; Item 45 “I often put my child on a diet to control his/her weight”) and one item (Item 40 “I have to be sure that my child does not eat too much of his/her favorite foods”), respectively.
The Modeling subscale lost one item (Item 44 “I model healthy eating for my child by eating healthy foods myself”) that loaded in the Environment subscale. This result was also found in the study of Melbye et al. [
64]. As explained by Melbye et al. [
64], the other three items in the Modeling subscale appear to reflect a more active form of modeling (e.g., “I try to eat healthy foods in front of my child...”; “I show my child how much I enjoy eating healthy foods”), whereas this particular item reflects a more passive form of modeling. Furthermore, we could postulate that if caregivers practice healthy eating, the probability of healthy foods being available at home is high [
64]. To elucidate, Melbye et al. [
64] proposed that “healthy eating practices among parents might be more related to the availability of healthy foods in the home environment than to 'active' modeling of healthy eating” (p. 8).
In line with the results of Saltzman et al. [
65], in the present study, the Involvement subscale included one item from the Teaching about Nutrition subscale (Item 25 “I discuss with my child why it’s important to eat healthy foods”). In previous studies, items from feeding practices such as Involvement, Teaching about Nutrition, Encourage Balance and Variety, and Modeling also loaded together. Moreover, in some studies, items from these subscales were included into one new single factor named Healthy Eating Guidance (48,50,61,63,65). This is expected because caregivers who use positive/responsive feeding practices don’t use them in isolation but in combination with others [
47,
48,
50,
66].
The modified CFPQ subscales also demonstrated good convergent and discriminant validity, which was indicated by the correlations between theoretically related constructs and a lack of correlations between unrelated constructs, respectively. In fact, the CFPQ Monitoring, Restriction for Weight Control, Restriction for Health, and Pressure subscales were strongly correlated with the corresponding CFQ subscales that measure the same constructs. Furthermore, distinct positive/responsive feeding practices such as Monitoring and Modeling were positively interrelated, and negative/non-responsive feeding practices such as Restriction, Emotion Regulation, and Pressure were also interrelated. Nonetheless, we found three apparently counterintuitive correlations. First, the CFPQ Environment subscale was negatively correlated with the CFQ Monitoring subscale. We believe it is possible that parents who keep less healthy foods or more unhealthy foods (e.g., salty snacks, candy, pastries) in the house feel the need to monitor their child’s intake of unhealthy foods. Second, the CFPQ Restriction for Health subscale was positively correlated with the CFQ Monitoring subscale. This correlation was also found in previous studies [
40,
65]. As suggested by Saltzman et al. [
65], parents who monitor their child’s intake may be more likely to guide them to eat healthy foods and thus may also restrict more the child’s intake of unhealthy foods. Lastly, the CFPQ Modeling subscale was positively correlated with the CFQ Restriction subscale. This correlation was also reported in Saltzman et al. [
65] study, which could suggest parents who demonstrate healthy eating for their child may be more likely to also guide and restrict child's intake of food to limit the consumption of unhealthy foods.
This study has limitations that should be addressed. First, participants were recruited using convenience sampling procedures, and the large majority of the sample was highly educated and consisted of mothers of, particularly, preschool children, thereby limiting the generalization of the findings. Future studies should test the CFPQ in more heterogeneous samples. Second, data are cross-sectional, limiting our ability to examine stability of factor scores across time. Third, since the CFPQ is a self-report instrument, responses may have been vulnerable to social desirability. Finally, other psychometric qualities should be tested, like predictive validity with other measures of child eating behaviors and weight outcomes.
These limitations notwithstanding, given the lack of valid measures assessing parental feeding practices for the Portuguese population, the present study provides a relevant contribution by validating an instrument that covers a wide variety of feeding practices. Moreover, reducing the questionnaire from 49 to 29 items could decrease the response burden. Our results also add to the parental feeding practices literature by supporting the role of cultural background and children’s age group in caregivers’ endorsement of feeding practices [
23,
33,
67]. Indeed, as in previous validation studies, our study resulted in a modified version of the CFPQ. In this sense, the design and implementation of interventions targeting feeding practices to promote children’s development of healthy eating behaviors and prevent obesity must be culturally sensitive and appropriate to the child’s age. To make this possible, further large-scale studies that include culturally diverse samples are needed to facilitate cross-culture comparisons and understand cultural differences in parental feeding practices.