Assessing the eating behaviors of low-income, urban adolescents

Background: There is a need for instruments that can accurately determine the effectiveness of nutrition interventions targeting low-income, inner-city adolescents. Purpose: To examine the development of a valid and reliable eating behavior scale (EBS) for use in school-based nutrition interventions in urban, inner-city communities dominated by high poverty, food insecurity and academic underperformance with primarily minority residents. Methods: The research was conducted with 387 minority adolescents in an inner-city urban school. Reliability was determined by administering the EBS to students twice on the same day, five hours apart. Convergent validity was determined by comparing the results of the EBS with 24-hour recalls conducted by trained dietitians. Spearman correlations and kappa statistics were used. Results: The EBS produced acceptable validity and reliability indices. Discussion: The EBS, designed specifically for use with minority urban adolescents who are both economically deprived and attend schools with documented low performance, provided preliminary evidence that it could produce valid and reliable scores with this population. Translation to Health Education Practice: The EBS which is easy for students to use and creates minimal disruption of instructional time can be used by researchers or practitioners to assess eating behaviors in low-income, minority adolescents.