Children’s Eating Behavior Questionnaire (CEBQ)

The Children's Eating Behaviour Questionnaire (CEBQ) asks a parent about a child's eating style — not what they eat, but how they approach food. Some children notice food everywhere and want it; others stop when full, dawdle, or refuse anything unfamiliar. The CEBQ measures both patterns.

Thirty-five items are rated from never to always across eight scales. Four lean toward food: food responsiveness, enjoyment of food, emotional overeating, and desire to drink. Four lean away: satiety responsiveness, slowness in eating, emotional undereating, and food fussiness. The two emotional scales are the interesting pair, capturing children who eat more when upset and children who eat less. The questionnaire was designed to identify early precursors of weight problems and disordered eating.

• Mapping the gaps: A scoping review of research on pediatric feeding disorder - ScienceDirect

Learn More: Two scoring conventions circulate either calculated subscale means, while others sum the items. Check which convention a comparison study used before reading a number against it.