title: The Minnesota Eating Behavior Survey: a brief measure of disordered eating attitudes and behaviors.
abstract: This article describes details of the development and psychometric characteristics of a brief self-report inventory for assessing attitudes and behaviors symptomatic of eating disorders that is currently in use in a longitudinal study of over 700 families with 11-year-old or 17-year-old twin girls. The Minnesota Eating Behavior Survey (MEBS), formerly the Minnesota Eating Disorder Inventory, is a 30-item measure developed for use with children as young as 10 years as well as adults. An examination of the MEBS's psychometric properties in a large, community sample of girls, women, and men demonstrated good factor congruence, internal consistency reliability, three-year stability, as well as evidence of concurrent and criterion validity. This questionnaire has promise as a screening and assessment measure for eating disturbance in cross-sectional and longitudinal research involving individuals of a wide range of ages.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive NW, Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2N 1N4. kvonrans@ucalgary.ca
authors.forename: Kristin M
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: von Ranson
authors.forename: Kelly L
authors.initials: KL
authors.lastname: Klump
authors.forename: William G
authors.initials: WG
authors.lastname: Iacono
authors.forename: Matt
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: McGue
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D001290:Attitude; D002648:Child; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D004200:Diseases in Twins / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D005247:Feeding Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D001068:Feeding and Eating Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D008403:Mass Screening / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods; D010555:Personality Inventory / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results