Validation of a Checklist to Assess the Home Food Environment of School-aged Children

Objective: We developed and tested a home food checklist for parents to assess the availability and visibility of healthy and unhealthy foods at home. Methods: The in-house assessment was conducted in the homes of 82 parents and their children (M age = 9.8 +/- 2.6 years). The Home Food Checklist was completed by both parents and researchers, and tested for criterion and construct validity. The agreement between researchers and parents was examined using kappa statistics. Results: The checklist showed acceptable criterion validity (Kappa statistics: 0.41-1.00) between researchers' and parents' assessments for the majority of tested items. Substantial construct validity was demonstrated by significant and positive correlations between availability scores of food items on the checklist and self-report 30-day availability scores of corresponding food items in the home (p < .05). Conclusions: The checklist is a useful tool that parents can complete to assess the home food environment.