title: The Power of Food Scale. A new measure of the psychological influence of the food environment.
abstract: This paper describes the psychometric evaluation of a new measure called the Power of Food Scale (PFS). The PFS assesses the psychological impact of living in food-abundant environments. It measures appetite for, rather than consumption of, palatable foods, at three levels of food proximity (food available, food present, and food tasted). Participants were 466 healthy college students. A confirmatory factor analysis replicated the three-factor solution found previously by Capelleri et al. [Capelleri, J. C., Bushmakin, A. G., Gerber, R. A., Leidy, N. K., Sexton, C., Karlsson, J., et al. (in press). Discovering the structure of the Power of Food Scale (PFS) in obese patients. International Journal of Obesity, 11, A165]. The PFS was found to have adequate internal consistency and test-retest reliability. The PFS and the Restraint Scale were regressed on four self-report measures of overeating. The PFS was independently related to all four whereas the Restraint Scale was independently related to two. Expert ratings of items suggested that the items are an acceptable reflection of the construct that the PFS is designed to capture. The PFS may be useful as a measure of the hedonic impact of food environments replete with highly palatable foods.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA 19102, USA. lowe@drexel.edu
authors.forename: Michael R
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Lowe
authors.forename: Meghan L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Butryn
authors.forename: Elizabeth R
authors.initials: ER
authors.lastname: Didie
authors.forename: Rachel A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Annunziato
authors.forename: J Graham
authors.initials: JG
authors.lastname: Thomas
authors.forename: Canice E
authors.initials: CE
authors.lastname: Crerand
authors.forename: Christopher N
authors.initials: CN
authors.lastname: Ochner
authors.forename: Maria C
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Coletta
authors.forename: Dara
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Bellace
authors.forename: Matthew
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Wallaert
authors.forename: Jason
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Halford
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001066:Appetite; D015992:Body Mass Index; D004435:Eating / Q000523:psychology; D004777:Environment; D005260:Female; D005502:Food; D005518:Food Preferences / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D016014:Linear Models; D008297:Male; D009765:Obesity / Q000523:psychology; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013649:Taste