Concurrent validation of the CHEERS survey and the mindful eating questionnaire. Lynne Lafave* PhD, & Alexis Webster* BA (Psych) *Department of Health & Physical Education, Mount Royal University, Calgary, Canada BACKGROUND DISCUSSSION RESULTS Children’s eating and activity patterns are strongly influenced by early childhood A total of 212 educators with a mean age of 38.3 ± 8.9 years from 42 ECEC The alignment between the MEQ awareness subscale with the CHEERS social, cultural, and physical environments surrounding the eating and activity centres across Alberta participated in the study. Healthy Eating Environment and Program Planning subscales provides experience. The creating healthy eating environments in childcare (CHEERS) evidence of concurrent validity for the CHEERS audit tool. Tool development Figure 1: MEQ subdomain of awareness positively correlated with the CHEERS healthy eating program planning. survey is a 59-item audit tool that can be self-administered to measure gaps, weaknesses, and strengths of early childhood education and care (ECEC) CHEERS subdomains 7 centre-based nutrition and physical activity environment. It has undergone is an iterative process and evaluating tools against similar measures provide additional validation measures which help strengthen the understanding of the psychometric properties of the tool within a given context. content and criterion validation, and intra- and inter-reliability testing but has yet 6.5 5.97 ± 0.71 1,2 to undergo concurrent validation.1, The mindful eating questionnaire (MEQ) is a 6 validated tool that provides a non-judgemental awareness of physical and 3 emotional sensations with eating.3CHEERS and MEQ measure overlapping 5.82 ± 0.86 5.64 ± 0.97 Mindful eating has been demonstrated to have a positive relationship with 4,5 healthy eating practices.4,The MEQ consists of five subscales and the Awareness subscale reflects an individuals' ability to recognize food 5.5 constructs related to healthy eating constructs. The purpose of this study was to characteristics and foods' effect on one's internal state. The Healthy Eating 5 3.2 4 3.5 3 Program planning Food Served Eating Environment 4.5 Environment CHEERS subscale reflects items that address ECEC physical Activity Environment concurrently validate the CHEERS audit tool with the MEQ. 4.51 ± 1.43 educator's promotion and teaching of positive eating practices and attitudes towards food. The Program Planning CHEERS subscale reflects incorporation of nutrition education into the ECEC daily curriculum. A critical aspect of a tool is that it measures what it purports to measure. The assessment of a modest relationship between MEQ awareness Score L subscale and the CHEERS subscales provides evidence that they are measuring similar although not identical constructs. This study adds further Figure 1: Short video description of the CHEERS tool https://rebrand.ly/CHEERSreport Methods validity to the CHEERS subscales in accordance with psychometric testing of audit tools. Figure 3: MEQ subdomain of awareness positively correlated with the CHEERS healthy eating program planning. Program Planning score Eating Environment score Figure 2: MEQ subdomain of awareness positively correlated with the CHEERS healthy eating environment. r=.17, p=.05 MEQ awareness score Educators from ECEC centres in Alberta were recruited as part of a larger study validity study. BMC Public Health. 2019;19(1):1-9. doi:10.1186/s12889-019-7719-8 2. Lafave L, Tyminski S, Riege T, Hoy D, Dexter B. Content Validity for a Child Care Self-assessment Tool: Creating Healthy Eating Environments Scale (CHEERS). Canadian Journal of Dietetic Practice and Research. 2016;77:89–92. 3. Framson C, Kristal AR, Schenk JM, Littman AJ, Zeliadt S, Benitez D. Development and Validation of the Mindful Eating Questionnaire. MEQ awareness score nutrition, physical activity, personal health, and sleep on the ECEC environment 4. Mason AE, Epel ES, Kristeller J, et al. Effects of a mindfulness-based intervention on mindful eating, sweets consumption, and fasting glucose levels in obese adults: data from the SHINE randomized controlled trial. J Behav Med. 2016;39(2):201-213. doi:10.1007/s10865- Figure 4: Overall MEQ score positively correlated with child care educator age. and educator professional practice. Educators completed the CHEERS and 015-9692-8 5. Jordan CH, Wang W, Donatoni L, Meier BP. Mindful eating: Trait and state mindfulness predict healthier eating behavior. Personality and Individual Differences. 2014;68:107-111. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2014.04.013 Educator Age MEQ tools to provide a baseline measure of current practice. Pearson r score (food served, healthy eating environment, healthy eating program 1. Lafave LMZ. Creating a healthy eating and active environment survey (CHEERS) for childcare: an inter-rater, intra-rater reliability and Journal of the American Dietetic Association. 2009;109(8):1439-1444. doi:10.1016/j.jada.2009.05.006 to determine the impact of a 10-month well-being intervention focused on correlation coefficient was calculated on the four subscales of the CHEERS r=.22, p=.01 REFERENCES r=.20, p=.02 Support gratefully acknowledged: planning, and physical activity environment), the MEQ subscores and overall score, and educator age using SPSS v26. Approval to conduct the study was MEQ score obtained from Mount Royal University Human Research Ethics Board. Publishing Date: May 2020. © 2020. All rights reserved. Copyright rests with the author. No part of this abstract/poster may be reproduced without written permission from the author.