The eating motivations scale (EATMOT): Development and validation by means of confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modelling (SEM)
Article Category: Research Article
Published Online: Dec 31, 2020
Page range: 4 - 9
Received: Jan 22, 2020
Accepted: Oct 05, 2020
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/sjph-2021-0002
Keywords
© 2021 National Institute of Public Health, Slovenia
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.
Introduction
The objective was to develop and validate an instrument that measures different determinants of people’s food choices and simultaneously accounts for a variety of factors: health, emotions, price and availability, society and culture, environment and politics, and marketing and advertising.
Methods
This is a cross-sectional study focusing on food choice determinants. It was carried out in 16 countries in 2017 and 2018. This study included 11,960 volunteer adult participants from different countries. The data was validated using Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Structural Equation Modelling (SEM).
Results
Validation using CFA with SEM revealed that multi-factor modelling produced first- and second-order models that could be used to define the EATMOT scale, the first presenting better fitting indices, with the goodness-of-fit and comparative-fit indices very close to 1, as well as root-mean-square-error-of-approximation, root-mean-square-residual and standardised-root-mean-square-residual at practically zero.
Conclusion
The validated EATMOT scale guarantees confidence in the information obtained through this instrument, and can be used in future studies to better understand food choice determinants in different geographical areas and help plan strategies to improve healthy eating patterns and diminish the burden of non-communicable diseases.