Intense craving for eat: standardization of the Food Cravings Questionnaire-State in Mexico.

BACKGROUND: Food craving is an intense-compulsive response to eating highly appetizing foods. The Food Cravings Questionnaire-State (FCQ-S) is the most used instrument for its diagnosis. It is a multidimensional instrument, sensitive and adaptable to contextual and cultural changes.

OBJECTIVE: To standardize the FCQ-S in the adult population of Mexico City.

METHOD: Non-experimental, cross-sectional, at convenience design, with 1059 adults of both sexes, aged 18-84 years. It is highlighted that 71.9% of the participants were women.

RESULTS: A reliability coefficient of 0.95 was obtained, the correlations between the items were from r = 0.598 to r = 0.793. With the exploratory factorial analysis, an MKO of sampling adequacy of 0.943 was obtained, and with the Bartlett sphericity test a p = 0.000. The factors explain 78.61% of the total variation of the data. The RMSEA was 0.068, which indicates an acceptable fit. The CFI was 0.974, considered good, and NNFI was 0.969, good fit. The correlations ranged from p < 0.05 to p < 0.01, showing a connection between the different dimensions.

CONCLUSIONS: The FCQ-S is valid and adaptable in the Mexican population.