The Power of Food Scale. A new measure of the psychological influence of the food environment.
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.
Lowe
Michael R
MR
Department of Psychology, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA 19102, USA. lowe@drexel.edu
Butryn
Meghan L
ML
Didie
Elizabeth R
ER
Annunziato
Rachel A
RA
Thomas
J Graham
JG
Crerand
Canice E
CE
Ochner
Christopher N
CN
Coletta
Maria C
MC
Bellace
Dara
D
Wallaert
Matthew
M
Halford
Jason
J
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