Intense craving for eat: standardization of the Food Cravings Questionnaire-State in Mexico

BACKGROUND

Food craving is an intense-compulsive response to eating highly appetizing foods. The Food Cravings Questionnaire-State (FCQ-S) is the most used instrument for its diagnosis. It is a multidimensional instrument, sensitive and adaptable to contextual and cultural changes.

OBJECTIVE

To standardize the FCQ-S in the adult population of Mexico City.

METHOD

Non-experimental, cross-sectional, at convenience design, with 1059 adults of both sexes, aged 18-84 years. It is highlighted that 71.9% of the participants were women.

RESULTS

A reliability coefficient of 0.95 was obtained, the correlations between the items were from r = 0.598 to r = 0.793. With the exploratory factorial analysis, an MKO of sampling adequacy of 0.943 was obtained, and with the Bartlett sphericity test a p = 0.000. The factors explain 78.61% of the total variation of the data. The RMSEA was 0.068, which indicates an acceptable fit. The CFI was 0.974, considered good, and NNFI was 0.969, good fit. The correlations ranged from p < 0.05 to p < 0.01, showing a connection between the different dimensions.

CONCLUSIONS

The FCQ-S is valid and adaptable in the Mexican population.

Intense craving for appetizing foods: validation and standardization of the Food Cravings Questionnaire-Trait in Mexico

Introduction

Food craving is a motivational and physiological response for eating specific foods, mainly with high caloric content. To assess food craving, self-reports, inventories and questionnaires are used. The Food Cravings Questionnaire-Trait is multi-dimensionally structured and has been validated in several countries, since it is sensitive and adaptable to contextual-cultural changes.

Objectives

To validate and standardize the Food Cravings Questionnaire-Trait in adults of Mexico City.

Method

Non-experimental, cross-sectional, randomized study of 1059 subjects of both genders, between 18 and 84 years of age; 71.86 % of the female gender. Psychometric properties were examined with exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses.

Results

The domains of the questionnaire were reduced and the items were reorganized differently from the original version. The confirmatory factor analysis showed an adequate fit and acceptable standardization of factors. High internal consistency was found for the global questionnaire (a = 0.973 and rho = 0.975) for each one of the domains.

Conclusion

This study determines the viability of the Food Cravings Questionnaire for the population of Mexico City.