Identifying Food Parenting Practices From Comprehensive Home Environment Survey

Objective: Conducting exploratory factor analysis (EFA) with the existing home environment assessment - the Comprehensive Home Environment Survey (CHES), to identify scales related to food parenting practices. Methods: Parents of 3- to 5-year-old children (n = 172) completed the CHES surveys. After selected items from CHES were categorized into food parenting practice constructs, EFA was used to identify potential subconstructs. Internal consistency and Spearman correlation analysis were also conducted. Results: The EFAs identified 4 factors within the structure, 4 within coercive control, and 2 within autonomy support. Conclusions and Implications: The results provided preliminary evidence and support that the CHES can be used to measure food parenting practices. The study was limited to a small sample of non-Hispanic White and highly educated participants, less identified items within autonomy support, and lower internal consistency for several identified factors. Confirmatory factor analysis in a larger and more diverse sample is needed for future research.