(OR31-03-24) Development and Validation of New Questionnaire To Measure Cultural Influences on Dietary Behavior

Objectives: There is widespread recognition that culture influences eating behaviors and obesity, but validated tools are needed to identify and measure specific cultural factors. We used factor analysis to develop a new questionnaire to identify and evaluate different aspects of food culture not currently addressed in validated questionnaires.

Methods: Through a literature review, qualitative interviews, and pilot tests, 45 questions were developed to address sociocultural themes not covered in published questionnaires on dietary behaviors relevant to body weight regulation. A sample of 1614 US adults was recruited through MTurk to complete the questions along with a demographic survey, and two open-ended opportunities were provided for additional participant comments. Recruitment was stratified by age and gender for an even distribution of participant characteristics. Data quality checks were developed to screen out low quality responses.

Results: A total sample of 1541 quality responses were collected from all US regions and were evenly split to conduct exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) using Stata/SE 17.0. Of the 773 participants in the EFA sample mean (SD) age was 46.3 (14.48) years, 45% identified as male, 76.3% identified as Non-Hispanic White, and 56% having overweight or obesity.

Bartlett’s test of sphericity indicated the correlation matrix was not random, X2= 7571.992, p< 0.001, and the Kaiser Meyer Olkin statistic was 0.843. Tests concluded a 7 factor, 31 item solution resulted in the strongest framework, with the cumulative variance being 0.5228. The seven factors grouped around themes of: a) community expectation, b) social norms, c) isolation, d) regionality, e) beliefs relating to the role of food in health, f) childhood eating practices, and g) generational traditions.

Conclusions: Factor analysis identified 7 themes for inclusion in a new food culture questionnaire. The new instrument that can be used to understand aspects of food culture in relation to overweight and obesity that have previously not been quantified.

Funding Sources: This project was funded through a Tufts Institute for Global Obesity Research (TIGOR) Grant and USDA agreement #8050-51,000-105-01S.