Adapting and validating the food neophobia scale for Pakistani mothers: Exploring the relationship between maternal and child food neophobia

Maternal food neophobia, a significant influencing factor in modeling maternal feeding practices, also plays a vital role in regulating preschoolers' food neophobia. This cross-sectional study was conducted to culturally adapt and validate the Food Neophobia Scale for Pakistani mothers (FNS-PK), assess the prevalence of maternal food neophobia, and explore the correlation between maternal food neophobia, maternal controlling feeding practices and preschoolers' food neophobia. The 10-item food neophobia scale was translated into the Urdu language following WHO guidelines, and various measures of validity (construct validity and discriminant validity) and reliability (internal consistency, test-retest consistency, and composite reliability) were used to test the scale. Afterward, a cross-sectional study was performed to assess the prevalence and correlation between maternal food neophobia, feeding practices and preschoolers' food neophobia. A total of 260 preschool children and their mothers were recruited for the cultural adaptation of the FNS-PK. The original 10-item FNS was modified to an 8-item FNS-PK, which exhibited good scale validity (chi 2/df = 1.113; TLI = 0.998; RMSEA = 0.021; AVE > 0.05) and reliability (Cronbach's alpha = 0.857). In a cross-sectional study involving 347 mother-child pairs, 15.9 % of the mothers and 8.0 % of the preschoolers exhibited food neophobia. Furthermore, there was a significant negative correlation between maternal food neophobia and controlling feeding practices, while there was a significant positive correlation between maternal and preschoolers' food neophobia. The adapted 8-item FNS-PK is a reliable tool for assessing food neophobia in Pakistan, and the significant correlation between maternal and preschoolers' food neophobia warrants further research.