Abstract
The primary aims of this study were to empirically test the factor structure of the Children’s Eating Attitudes Test (ChEAT) through both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses and to interpret the factor structure of the ChEAT within the context of a new scoring method. The ChEAT was administered to 728 children in the 2nd through 6th grades (from five schools) at two different time points. Exactly half the students were male and half were female. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to empirically test the merits of an alternative 6-point scoring system as compared to the traditionally used 4-point scoring system. With the new scoring procedure, the skewness for all factor scores decreased, which resulted in increased variance in the item scores, as well as the total ChEAT score. Since the internal consistency of two factors in a recently proposed model was not acceptable (<0.60), this model did not adequately fit our data. Thus, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted. A 6-factor solution based on a 20-item version was found to best fit the data and have the best internal reliability. The six factors were labeled: 1) overconcern with body size, 2) dieting, 3) food preoccupation, 4) social pressure to gain weight, 5) vomiting, and 6) caloric awareness and control. The obtained factor solution had considerable overlap with the original factor analysis performed on the 26-item Eating Attitudes Test and with the factor structure of the ChEAT reported by previous investigations. Intercorrelations among the factors suggested three higher order constructs. These findings indicate that the ChEAT subscales may be sufficiently stable to allow use in non-clinical samples of children.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Cooke R., Sawyer S.M.: Eating disorders in adolescence: An approach to diagnosis and management. Aust. Fam. Physician, 33, 27–31, 2004.
Robin A.L., Gilroy M., Dennis A.B.: Treatment of eating disorders in children and adolescents. Clin. Psychol. Rev., 18, 421–446, 1998.
Robinson T.N., Chang J.Y., Haydel K.F., Killen J.D.: Overweight concerns and body dissatisfaction among third-grade children: The impacts of ethnicity and socioeconomic status. J. Pediatrics, 138, 181–187, 2001.
Lawrence C.M., Thelen M.H.: Body image, dieting, and self-concept: Their relation in African-American and Caucasian Children. J. Clin. Child Psychol., 24, 41–48, 1995.
Maloney M.J., McGuire J., Daniels S.R.: Reliability testing of a children’s version of the Eating Attitudes Test. J. Am. Acad. Child Adolesc. Psychiatry, 5, 541–543, 1998.
Garner D.M., Olmsted M.P., Borh Y., Garfinkel P.E.: The Eating Attitudes Test: Psychometric features and clinical correlates. Psychol. Med., 12, 871–878, 1982.
Edlund B., Halvarsson K., Sjoden P.: Eating behaviors, and attitudes to eating, and body image in 7-year-old Swedish girls. Eur. Eat. Disord. Rev., 4, 40–53, 1996.
Smolak L., Levine M.P.: Psychometric properties of the Children’s Eating Attitudes Test. Int. J. Eat. Disord., 16, 275–282, 1994.
Thelen M.H., Cormier J.F.: Desire to be thinner and weight control among children and their parents. Behav. Ther., 26, 85–99, 1995.
Kelly C., Ricciardelli L.A., Clarke J.D.: Problem eating attitudes and behaviors in young children. Int. J. Eat. Disord., 25, 281–286, 1999.
Williamson D.A., DeLany J.P., Bentz B.G., Bray G.A., Champagne C.M., Harsha D.W.: Gender and racial differences in dieting and social pressure to gain weight among children. Journal of Gender, Culture, and Health, 2, 231–238, 1997.
Lynch W.C., Eppers-Reynolds K.: Children’s Eating Attitudes Test: Revised factor structure for adolescent girls. Eat. Weight Disord., 10, 222–235, 2005.
Kuczmarski R.J., Ogden C.L., Guo S.S., Grummer-Strawn L.M., Flegal K.M., Mei Z.: 2000 CDC Growth Charts for the United States: Methods and development. Vital Health Stat., 11, 1–190, 2002.
Maloney M.J., McGuire J., Daniels S.R., Specker B.: Dieting behavior and eating attitudes in children. Pediatrics, 84, 482–487, 1989.
Bickel P.J., Doksum K.A.: Mathematical Statistics. San Francisco, CA, Holden-Day, 1977.
Lawley D.N., Maxwell A.E.: Factor Analysis as a Statistical Method. New York, Macmillan Publishing Co. Inc, 1971.
Beckstead J.W.: Confirmatory factor analysis of the Maslach Burnout Inventory among Florida nurses. Int. J. Nurs. Stud., 39, 785–792, 2002.
Joreskog K.G., Sorbom D.: LISREL Version 8.54: User’s Reference Guide [electronic manual]. Chicago, Illinois, Scientific Software International Inc, 2003.
Browne M.W., Cudeck R.: Alternative ways of assessing model fit. In: Bollen K.A., Long J.S. (Eds.), Testing Structural Equation Models. Newbury Park, CA, Sage Publications, 1993, pp. 136–162.
Bentler P.M., Bonnet D.G.: Significance tests and goodness of fit in the analysis of covariance structures. Psychol. Bull., 88, 588–606, 1980.
Bentler P.M.: Comparative fit indexes in structural models. Psychol. Bull., 107, 238–246, 1990.
Van Prooijien J.W., Van Der Kloot W.A.: Confirmatory analysis of exploratively obtained factor structures. Educ. Psychol. Meas., 61, 777–792, 2001.
Stevens J.P.: Applied Multivariate Statistics for the Social Sciences. Lawrence Mahwahm, New Jersey, Erlbaum Associates, 2002.
Nunnally J.C., Bernstein I.H.: Psychometric Theory, 3rd ed. New York, McGraw-Hill, 1994, pp. 264–265.
Marsh H.W., Hocevar D.: Application of confirmatory factor analysis to the study of self-concept: First- and higher order factor models and their invariance across groups. Psychol. Bull., 97, 362–582, 1985.
Williamson D.A., Womble L.G., Smeets M.A., Netemeyer R.G., Thaw J.M., Kutlesic V., Gleaves D.H.: Latent structure of eating disorder symptoms: A factor analytic and taxometric investigation. Am. J. Psychiatry, 159, 412–418, 2002.
Williamson D.A., Gleaves D.H., Stewart T.M.: Categorical versus dimensional models of eating disorders: An examination of the evidence. Int. J. Eat. Disord., 37, 1–10, 2004.
Kent A., Lacey J.H., McCluskey S.E.: Pre-menarchal bulimia nervosa. J. Psychosom. Res., 36, 205–210, 1992.
Nunnally J.C.: Psychometric Theory. New York, McGraw-Hill, 1967.
Kaiser H.F.: A second generation little jiffy. Psychometricka, 35, 401–415, 1970.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Anton, S.D., Han, H., Newton, R.L. et al. Reformulation of the Children’s Eating Attitudes Test (ChEAT): Factor structure and scoring method in a non-clinical population. Eat Weight Disord 11, 201–210 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03327572
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03327572