Introduction:

disordered eating behaviors (DEBs) and eating disorders (Eds) mainly occur in adolescence, but they currently already occur at an early age between the ages of five and twelve. Although there are instruments for EDs, it is necessary to have a self-applicable instrument for evaluating DEBs in children.

Objective:

to determine the reliability and exploratory and confirmatory factorial validity of the Brief Questionnaire for Measuring Disordered Eating Behaviors (BQDEB) in children ages eight to twelve years.

Material and methods:

the sample comprised 386 Mexican children with an average age of 10.2 years. The BQDEB was adapted for this population, with questions being reduced from ten to seven and answer choices from four to three. Frequency and percentage, reliability, and exploratory and confirmatory validity analyses were undertaken.

Results:

concern over gaining weight was the most frequent DEB. The exploratory factorial analysis yielded seven items grouped into two factors: 1) compensatory/restrictive behaviors; and 2) binge eating, with a total ordinal alpha reliability of 0.95. Confirmatory factor analysis showed that the model fits the data well.

Conclusions:

since the psychometric properties of the BQDEB for children were adequate, it constitutes a useful instrument for identifying DEBs in children.

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