Validity and Reliability of a Behavior Assessment Questionnaire for Children with Obesity

Background: Brief, easily administered measures of diet and physical activity behaviors for childhood obesity interventions are lacking. The aim of this study is to evaluate reliability and validity of a questionnaire developed to assess healthy lifestyle behaviors in children with obesity. Methods: The Behavior Assessment Questionnaire (BAQ) was created to assess three areas related to pediatric obesity: 1) screen time 2) physical activity and 3) food consumption. Parents of children 5 to 18 years of age reported their child's behaviors during the past 3 months on a 10-item questionnaire using a 5-point response scale. Responses were converted to a 0-100 scale, with higher scores indicating healthier behavior. Questionnaires were obtained from two convenience samples: parents of children presenting to an obesity specialty clinic (N = 83) and parents of children at community events and hospital employee parents (N = 147). Results: Reliability and validity of the BAQ were tested. Scores had a normal distribution with no floor or ceiling effects observed. The Cronbach's alpha for the 10-item scale was .71. Factor analysis yielded three component factors with Cronbach's alpha of .66 for the Screen Time dimension, .75 for the Physical Activity dimension, and .59 for the Food Consumption dimension. Known groups analysis indicated lower scores for the obesity group (49.02 [SD 14.52]) compared with the community group (55.44 [SD 13.55]), p = .001. Conclusions: The BAQ demonstrated reliability and validity for use as an index of lifestyle behaviors. It distinguishes between children with obesity and a community comparison sample.