Childhood Mealtime Experiences and Early Childcare and Education Staff Classroom Feeding Practices–Model Survey

Abstract

The Childhood Mealtime Experiences and Early Childcare and Education Staff Classroom Feeding Practices—Model Survey (CME-ECE-CFP-M) is an empirical psychometric instrument designed to evaluate the developmental and transgenerational mechanisms linking early childhood mealtime experiences with contemporary nutritional caregiving behaviors among early childcare and education (ECE) professionals (Zhang et al., 2023). Developed through the integration of cognitive interviewing methodologies and established feeding assessment paradigms, the survey comprises 38 items divided across retrospective childhood domains and prospective early educational classroom feeding environments. The measurement model captures two primary temporal epochs: remembered childhood experiences (featuring Remembered Adult Control at Mealtimes and Remembered Child Autonomy Support at Mealtimes) and contemporary occupational functioning categorized into three structural constructs: Structural Mealtime Strategies (including adult control of foods, bribing with sweet foods, and supportive adult roles), Verbal Mealtime Strategies (encompassing autonomy-supporting language, autonomy-undermining prompts, and social comparisons), and Beliefs About Mealtimes (evaluating autonomy-promoting, coercive, and concern-based control cognitive schema). Items utilize an authentic five-point Likert-type response continuum ranging from Always to Never. Psychometric validation via iterated principal axis factoring with oblimin rotation and maximum likelihood estimation confirms clear factor bifurcation in the retrospective scale and distinct multidimensional operationalization across classroom strategies and underlying educator beliefs. Internal consistency estimates range from modest to robust across subscales, reflecting the natural heterogeneity of behavioral feeding interactions in community childcare settings. The instrument serves as a critical diagnostic and pedagogical foundation for workforce development, targeted professional nutrition interventions, and clinical investigations exploring how personal autobiographical histories shape institutional childcare environments.

Keywords

Early Childcare and Education Staff, Childhood Mealtime Experiences, Classroom Feeding Practices, Autonomy-Supportive Feeding, Coercive Feeding Beliefs, Responsive Feeding Therapy, Structural Mealtime Strategies, Verbal Mealtime Prompts, Transgenerational Feeding Schemas, Child Nutrition Assessment

Authors

The CME-ECE-CFP-M was conceptualized, developed, and psychometrically validated by a collaborative consortium of pediatric nutrition scientists, behavioral researchers, and early childhood education specialists:

• Dong Zhang, PhD — Department of Family and Preventive Medicine, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (Email: [email protected]).
• Taren Swindle, PhD — Department of Family and Preventive Medicine, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (Email: [email protected]).
• Janice Williams Fletcher, EdD — Department of Child, Family, and Consumer Studies, University of Idaho (Professor Emerita; Email: [email protected]).
• Madeleine Sigman-Grant, PhD, RD — Maternal and Child Health Specialist, University of Nevada Reno (Emerita; ORCID: 0000-0002-8233-4156; Correspondence Address: 2558 S Elizabeth Street, #5, Salt Lake City, UT 84106; Email: [email protected]).
• Susan L. Johnson, PhD — Children’s Eating Laboratory, Section of Nutrition, Department of Pediatrics, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus (Email: [email protected]).

Purpose

The primary purpose of the CME-ECE-CFP-M is to systematically capture, quantify, and model the developmental pathway through which an early care educator’s autobiographical eating history influences their professional mealtime decision-making within early learning classrooms. Historically, public health initiatives targeting preschool obesity, self-regulation in eating, and balanced nutritional intake have focused almost exclusively on maternal and paternal home environments. However, contemporary demographic patterns indicate that millions of young children consume up to two-thirds of their daily dietary requirements within structured ECE programs. Within these institutional settings, teachers, aides, and childcare providers operate as surrogate feeding authorities whose behavioral prompts directly modulate young children’s long-term relationship with food, physiological satiety awareness, and risk of pediatric adiposity.

Despite the implementation of structured nutrition policies across federally funded programs (such as Head Start and the Child and Adult Care Food Program [CACFP]), classroom feeding practices remain exceptionally variable. Teachers frequently default to non-responsive feeding practices—such as coercing children to take mandatory bites, using dessert as an incentive for eating vegetables, or comparing children’s consumption rates—even when institutional guidelines discourage such behaviors. The CME-ECE-CFP-M was developed to provide an empirical explanation for this implementation gap. Grounded in clinical observations that caregiving practices are deeply rooted in internal working models formed during the caregiver’s own childhood, the survey operates as a dual-purpose diagnostic and research instrument.

In research contexts, the scale enables structural equation modeling of how retrospective mealtime restriction, emotional feeding, or autonomy granting during the educator’s developmental years predicts implicit bias toward authoritarian feeding in the classroom. In clinical and educational training frameworks, the tool provides professional development facilitators with an evidence-based self-reflection protocol. By completing the survey, ECE educators identify unresolved childhood feeding dynamics, fostering critical metacognitive awareness that facilitates the voluntary abandonment of coercive mealtime behaviors and accelerates the adoption of evidence-based responsive feeding practices.

Psychological Construct

The CME-ECE-CFP-M operationalizes a multidimensional psychological and behavioral network consisting of retrospective autobiographical recall and contemporary professional caregiving practices. The construct assumes that early mealtime experiences establish deep-seated cognitive schemas regarding food security, authority, personal autonomy, and emotional coping, which spontaneously activate when individuals assume nutritional caregiving responsibilities for others.

1. Remembered Childhood Mealtime Experiences (THEN Construct)

This retrospective construct assesses the emotional and behavioral climate surrounding meals during the respondent’s childhood. It comprises two underlying psychometric factors:

• Remembered Adult Control at Mealtimes: Measures the degree to which developmental authority figures exerted rigid, intrusive control over the respondent’s food intake. This includes instrumental feeding (using food as an emotional reward: “adults gave me food when they were happy with me”), verbal hyper-criticism (“adults picked on me about my eating”), chronic surveillance that induced dietary guilt or premature dietary restraint (“I thought about or tried dieting”), and external overriding of internal satiety cues (“I was required to eat all the food on my plate”).
• Remembered Child Autonomy Support at Mealtimes: Reflects childhood meal environments characterized by trust and somatic autonomy. It examines whether caregivers respected the child’s individual agency regarding food selection and volumetric consumption (e.g., “I was allowed to choose which foods I ate at meals” and “I was allowed to decide how much I ate at meals”).

2. Contemporary ECE Classroom Strategies and Beliefs (NOW Construct)

The contemporary professional construct captures overt classroom feeding behaviors and covert attitudinal orientations, bifurcated into structural actions, verbal interactions, and overarching cognitive beliefs:

• Structural Mealtime Strategies: Evaluates tangible physical and procedural mealtime arrangements configured by the educator. Subscales include:
  • Adult Control of Foods: Rigid rules dictating consumption sequences, such as enforcing mandatory trials before granting additional food portions (e.g., enforcing a “one-bite” rule or withholding seconds).
  • Bribing with Sweet Foods: The strategic use of energy-dense dessert items as extrinsic reinforcers to induce consumption of less preferred nutrient-dense foods.
  • Supportive Adult Roles at Mealtime: The intentional implementation of family-style dining principles where educators model positive eating behavior, sit directly with children, eat identical foods, and facilitate communal food passing to foster motor and behavioral competence.
• Verbal Mealtime Strategies: Evaluates the linguistic prompts, directives, and conversational strategies employed during meals:
  • Autonomy-Supporting Strategies: Verbal interactions that encourage children to recognize and heed their internal physiological cues of hunger and satiety (e.g., asking children to assess if their tummies are full).
  • Autonomy-Undermining Strategies: Authoritarian linguistic directives that override the child’s internal regulation through teacher-defined consumption targets (e.g., telling a child they have not eaten enough).
  • Social Comparisons: Linguistic nudges that employ peer behavior as a lever for compliance (e.g., praising another child for finishing green beans to induce conformity in a reluctant eater).
• Beliefs About Mealtimes: Assesses the underlying cognitive and philosophical paradigms held by the educator regarding pediatric nutrition and authority:
  • Autonomy-Supporting Beliefs: Convictions prioritizing exposure, modeling, and autonomous child choice without coercive pressure.
  • Coercive Beliefs: Deep-seated cognitive acceptance of external adult mandates, instrumental reward hierarchies, and compulsory plate-clearing.
  • Concern-Based Control Beliefs: Controlling feeding practices that stem from benevolent anxiety or protective instincts, such as emotional feeding (offering a cracker to soothe distress) or assuming that adults inherently know more about a child’s metabolic needs than the child’s own biological signaling systems.

Theoretical Framework

The CME-ECE-CFP-M is anchored at the intersection of several developmental, behavioral, and nutritional theories: Self-Determination Theory, Social Cognitive Theory, Satter’s Division of Responsibility in Feeding, and early attachment/schema models.

Under Self-Determination Theory (SDT) (Ryan & Deci, 2000), optimal self-regulation requires the fulfillment of three basic psychological needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. In pediatric nutrition, children are biologically equipped to self-regulate energy intake via intrinsic cues of hunger and fullness. When adult caregivers utilize controlling feeding practices—such as instrumental conditioning (bribing with sweets) or autocratic mandates (clean-plate rules)—they thwart the child’s need for autonomy. This causes the child’s internal hunger/satiety signaling to be replaced by external extrinsic motives. The CME-ECE-CFP-M models whether educators who experienced autonomy-thwarting environments in their own developmental histories unconsciously recreate coercive mealtime conditions for the children in their care.

The scale is further grounded in Satter’s Division of Responsibility (sDOR) in Feeding (Satter, 1995, 2005). The sDOR framework dictates a clear division of operational tasks: the adult is responsible for what, when, and where food is offered, while the developing child maintains absolute somatic sovereignty over whether they eat and how much they consume. Disruptions in this equilibrium occur when adults trespass upon the child’s territory through authoritarian coercion (e.g., forced one-bite mandates) or neglectful permissiveness. The CME-ECE-CFP-M explicitly benchmarks educator beliefs and classroom practices against the sDOR model, evaluating whether educators maintain structural boundaries without usurping somatic autonomy.

Finally, Social Cognitive Theory (Bandura, 1986) and early schema models elucidate the intergenerational persistence of feeding styles. Caregivers absorb implicit observational scripts during their formative years regarding what constitutes “caring,” “wastefulness,” and “parental control.” These internalized scripts often lie dormant until activated by caregiving roles. Once in the classroom, educators project their unexamined, concern-driven anxieties onto children, often using food as a soothing agent or an instrument of compliance. The CME-ECE-CFP-M serves as an analytical framework designed to decode these reciprocal cognitive-behavioral relationships.

Validity

The development and validation of the CME-ECE-CFP-M employed extensive qualitative and quantitative psychometric procedures to establish construct, content, and convergent validity across community childcare populations (Zhang et al., 2023; Sigman-Grant et al., 2008).

Content and Cognitive Validity

Initial items were systematically derived from antecedent foundational surveys evaluating early childhood feeding environments (e.g., Swindle et al., 2018; Sigman-Grant et al., 2008). To ensure rigorous cognitive validity, researchers conducted comprehensive cognitive interviews with ethnically, educationally, and culturally diverse cohorts of ECE staff across four western states in the United States. These cognitive interviews served to evaluate linguistic comprehension, semantic clarity, context-specific relevance, and the degree of cognitive burden imposed by retrospective recall items. Ambiguous phrasing, emotionally laden terminology, and leading stems were iteratively revised or eliminated, confirming that respondents across diverse educational backgrounds conceptualized mealtime autonomy, food bribing, and adult control consistently.

Construct and Structural Validity

Construct validity was evaluated through iterated exploratory factor analytic models and parallel analysis. The data confirmed that the retrospective childhood mealtime experience items dissociated into two conceptually distinct, uncorrelated latent factors rather than a single bipolar continuum. This demonstrates that remembered parental control and remembered child autonomy operate as functionally independent developmental dimensions. Furthermore, contemporary classroom practices loaded cleanly onto distinct structural and verbal dimensions, supporting the theoretical proposition that what educators say (verbal strategies) and what educators do (structural configurations) represent separable behavioral domains.

Convergent and Criterion-Related Validity

Structural equation modeling and correlation analyses conducted by Zhang et al. (2023) demonstrated significant predictive paths between early childhood memories and current educational behaviors. Specifically, high scores on retrospective Remembered Adult Control at Mealtimes were positively and significantly correlated with contemporary Coercive Beliefs and the utilization of Adult Control of Foods in the classroom. Conversely, early experiences characterized by high Child Autonomy Support inversely predicted coercive practices and positively predicted responsive feeding interactions, confirming theoretical convergent validity.

Reliability

The reliability parameters of the CME-ECE-CFP-M reflect the nuanced psychometric landscape typical of short, multifaceted observational-proxy surveys administered in community educational environments (Zhang et al., 2023). Reliability was evaluated using both Cronbach’s alpha and Kuder-Richardson Formula 20 (KR-20) coefficients, depending on scale properties and the underlying distribution of the subscale constructs.

Internal Consistency Metrics

• Remembered Childhood Mealtime Experiences:
  • Remembered Adult Control at Mealtimes: Cronbach’s α = 0.68 (indicative of adequate internal consistency for a 4-item retrospective cognitive inventory).
  • Remembered Child Autonomy Support at Mealtimes: Cronbach’s α = 0.66 (reflecting acceptable coherence across the 3-item autonomy recall cluster).
• Structural Mealtime Strategies (Classroom Practices):
  • Adult Control of Foods: KR-20 = 0.67.
  • Bribing with Sweet Foods: KR-20 = 0.64.
  • Supportive Adult Roles at Mealtime: KR-20 = 0.55.
• Verbal Mealtime Strategies:
  • Autonomy Supporting Strategies: KR-20 = 0.61.
  • Social Comparisons: KR-20 = 0.59.
  • Autonomy Undermining Strategies: KR-20 = 0.43.
• Beliefs About Mealtimes:
  • Coercive Beliefs: Cronbach’s α = 0.77 (demonstrating strong internal consistency and construct stability).
  • Autonomy Promoting Beliefs: Cronbach’s α = 0.65.
  • Concern-Based Control Beliefs: Cronbach’s α = 0.60.

While select subscales (e.g., Autonomy Undermining Strategies at α = 0.43 and Supportive Adult Roles at α = 0.55) exhibit lower internal consistency values, these coefficients are not uncommon in behavioral feeding assessments characterized by brief item sets (2 to 3 items per factor) and distinct contextual triggers. The authors emphasize that these brief dimensions capture multifaceted environmental actions rather than a singular homogeneous cognitive trait. Consequently, composite scores retain substantial operational utility in structural and path analytic modeling.

Factor Analysis

The factorial validity of the CME-ECE-CFP-M was established through rigorous exploratory and confirmatory factor analytic workflows outlined by Zhang et al. (2023) using SAS psychometric procedures (SAS Institute Inc., 2015).

Retrospective Factor Structure Extraction

For items measuring remembered childhood mealtime experiences, an iterated principal axes factor extraction using maximum likelihood was conducted, paired with an oblique (oblimin) rotation to allow for potential theoretical inter-correlations between distinct parental rearing dimensions. Scree plot evaluation, eigenvalue inspection (Kaiser criterion > 1.0), and Horn’s parallel analysis unequivocally identified a robust two-factor latent structure:

1. Factor 1: Remembered Adult Control: Composed of four salient items with primary factor loadings exceeding 0.45, capturing restrictive dietary mandates, emotional eating reinforcement, plate-clearing rules, and weight-based criticism.
2. Factor 2: Remembered Child Autonomy Support: Composed of three primary items with factor loadings spanning 0.48 to 0.72, delineating personal volumetric determination and choice of foods during formative meal interactions.

Classroom Practices and Beliefs Extraction

Contemporary ECE practices and attitudes were evaluated across three structurally independent factor analysis operations, corresponding to theoretical delineations between physical strategies, linguistic prompts, and cognitive beliefs:

• Structural Mealtime Strategies: Parallel analysis and iterative factoring supported a three-factor solution comprising Adult Control of Foods, Bribing with Sweet Foods, and Supportive Adult Roles. Inter-factor correlations confirmed these represent distinct operational behaviors within the meal setting.
• Verbal Mealtime Strategies: Oblimin-rotated extraction confirmed a three-factor latent structure separating supportive satiety inquiries (Autonomy Supporting), directive consumption enforcement (Autonomy Undermining), and normative peer pressure (Social Comparisons).
• Beliefs About Mealtimes: Factor analysis extracted three clean cognitive factors accounting for a substantial proportion of shared variance: Autonomy Supporting Beliefs, Coercive Beliefs, and Concern-Based Control Beliefs. Cross-loadings across these three belief domains were negligible (< 0.20), confirming excellent discriminant validity.

Instrument / Measurement Tool

• Instrument Name: Childhood Mealtime Experiences and Early Childcare and Education Staff Classroom Feeding Practices—Model Survey (CME-ECE-CFP-M).
• Instrument Type: Self-report psychometric questionnaire; retrospective developmental inventory combined with concurrent professional caregiving practice assessment.
• Target Population: Early Childcare and Education (ECE) professionals, Head Start teachers, preschool aides, family childcare home providers, and institutional nutritional caregivers.
• Administration Format: Paper-and-pencil questionnaire or secure digital assessment platform; suitable for individual self-assessment or large-scale research surveys.
• Completion Time: Approximately 10 to 15 minutes.
• Total Item Count: 38 items.
• Authentic Response Continuum: Five-point ordinal response scale: Always, Often, Sometimes, Not often, Never.
• Scale Dimensional Architecture:
  • Retrospective Domain (Childhood “THEN”):
    • Remembered Adult Control at Mealtimes (4 items)
    • Remembered Child Autonomy Support at Mealtimes (3 items)
  • Contemporary Domain (Classroom “NOW”):
    • Structural Strategies: Adult Control of Foods (3 items); Bribing with Sweet Foods (2 items); Supportive Adult Roles at Mealtime (5 items)
    • Verbal Strategies: Autonomy Supporting Strategies (3 items); Autonomy Undermining Strategies (2 items); Social Comparisons (4 items)
    • Beliefs About Mealtimes: Autonomy Supporting Beliefs (3 items); Coercive Beliefs (4 items); Concern-Based Control Beliefs (4 items)
• Scoring Protocol: Items are scored ordinally from 1 to 5 (or 0 to 4 depending on study coding, typically: Never = 1, Not often = 2, Sometimes = 3, Often = 4, Always = 5). Positively worded items within coercive subscales require no reversal, while composite subscale scores are generated by calculating the unweighted arithmetic mean of completed items within each factor. Higher scores denote greater frequency of the targeted behavior or stronger endorsement of the specified belief system.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

• Year of Initial Formal Publication: 2023 (formative pilot components developed between 2002–2008 and 2018).
• Copyright & Ownership: Intellectual property remains with the primary investigative authors (Zhang, Swindle, Fletcher, Sigman-Grant, & Johnson, 2023) and published under academic license with Elsevier Inc.
• Usage Permissions: Available at no cost for scholarly research, educational instruction, institutional self-assessment, and non-commercial public health interventions. Prior written authorization from the corresponding author is recommended for institutional modification, automated digitization, or inclusion in grant-funded clinical trials.
• Commercialization: Commercial reproduction, sale, or distribution within proprietary commercial training modules without express licensing agreements is strictly prohibited.
• Primary Corresponding Author: Madeleine Sigman-Grant, PhD, RD, Maternal and Child Health Specialist, University of Nevada Reno (Email: [email protected]).

References

Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory. Prentice-Hall, Inc.

Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American Psychologist, 55(1), 68–78. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.55.1.68

SAS Institute Inc. (2015). SAS/STAT 14.1 user’s guide. SAS Institute Inc.

Satter, E. (1995). Feeding dynamics: Helping children to eat well. Journal of Pediatric Health Care, 9(4), 178–184. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0891-5245(05)80034-7

Satter, E. (2005). Your child’s weight: Helping without harming. Kelcy Press.

Sigman-Grant, M., Christiansen, E., Branen, L., Fletcher, J., & Johnson, S. L. (2008). About feeding children: Development of a pre-training questionnaire for child care providers. Health Promotion Practice, 9(4), 427–435. https://doi.org/10.1177/1524839906298501

Swindle, T., Sigman-Grant, M., Branen, L. J., Fletcher, J., & Johnson, S. L. (2018). The About Feeding Children measure: Factor structure and internal consistency of a measure of early care and education teachers’ mealtime practices. Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, 118(4), 629–640. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jand.2017.08.112

Zhang, D., Swindle, T., Fletcher, J. W., Sigman-Grant, M., & Johnson, S. L. (2023). Remembered childhood mealtime experiences influence on early childcare and education staff. Appetite, 190, Article 107003, 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2023.107003

Items of the Scale