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2.5. Standardization of Food Craving Questionnaire (Analysis of
the Items)
To standardize the FCQ, we proceeded to evaluate: a)
Distribution
: 36 items had
positive bias (>0.5): items 1 - 3, 5 - 35, and 37. Item 36 exhibited negative bias
(<0.5). Four of the items presented a normal distribution; b)
directionality
: items
1 and 7 had a flattened frequency indicating that the remaining items were con-
sistent with the theory; c)
discrimination
: A Student’s t-test was performed for
independent samples. The items were statistically significant (p < 0.05) and no
items were discarded; d)
internal consistency
: to determine that the items were
consistent with each other a Cronbach
α
analysis was performed. The correlation
of the total corrected element from each of them was greater than 0.2 which in-
dicated all items were consistent with each other (
α
= 0.92).
2.6. Validity of the Food Craving Questionnaire
The validity of the FCQ was determined using a factorial statistical analysis. Six
items were removed because they presented with values less than 0.4 in the ma-
trix of rotated components (items 1, 7, of leisure; item 18 of anxiety; items 21
and 25 of depression; and item 26 of anger, as defined in test plan described pre-
viously). The results of the factor analysis showed six factors in the matrix of ro-
tated components, orthogonal rotation method. Rotation converged in 9 itera-
tions. A factor was removed because not present the appropriate values for the
rotated component matrix (<0.4), giving a total solution of 5 factors and 30
items, as well as the total of items for each factor. Subsequently, the total va-
riance explained in each of the factors in the FCQ using the extraction method
of principal component analysis, where it was observed that the five factors ex-
plain 63.5% of the phenomenon anxiety described by the food. The reliability of
the instrument was determined by Cronbach
α
statistical analysis for the re-
maining 30 items. A value of
α
= 0.92 for total test which indicated there were
high levels of reliability.
2.7. Procedures
Once the study was approved by the Ethics Committee (described above), vo-
lunteers gave their consent to participate in the study. Participants answer ques-
tions related to the clinical history: age, occupation, place of residence, schooling
level, civil status, income, gynecological data (age at menarche, characteristics of
the menstrual cycle, use of oral contraceptives, and number of pregnancies,
abortions, and cesarean sections). We also asked questions about practice of
physical exercise (type of physical exercise, time since practice, number of days
per week of practice, and duration in minutes), following the criteria of the
American College of Sports Medicine [21]. Subsequently, the participants ans-
wered the FC behavior questionnaire described above.
2.8. Anthropometrical Evaluation
The anthropometrical measurements followed guidelines according to the In-