About feeding children: factor structure and internal reliability of a survey to assess mealtime strategies and beliefs of early childhood education teachers

Background Children spend a substantial amount of time in early care and education (ECE) settings and may eat a majority of their diet in this setting. While there are several instruments focused on measuring factors of the ECE environment that may influence diet and weight outcomes, there are few comprehensive, valid, and reliable measures for collecting self-report of ECE providers’ feeding practices. The purpose of this study was to establish the factor structure and internal reliability of a survey developed to measure practices and beliefs of ECE providers relative to feeding children.