Exploring quality of life as a determinant of eating behaviors among youth: A preliminary study

Dynatalie Delicious; Chemah Tamby Chik; Lovelyna Benedict Jipiu.

Transactions on Science and Technology, 12(3-3), Article ID FSMP25OA9, pp 1 - 8.

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ABSTRACT
Youths often exhibit poor eating behavior, including high fast-food intake and low fruit and vegetable consumption. This poor eating behavior undermines quality of life, which may subsequently contribute to the continuation of unhealthy dietary habits. In Malaysia, 53.5% of the population is overweight or obese, making obesity a major problem. This preliminary study aims to examine the underlying factor structure of the Quality of Life (QoL) and Eating Behavior (EB) scales. A sample size of n = 50 and participants aged 18 to 30 years completed a structured questionnaire that incorporated the WHOQoL and Three-Factor Eating Questionnaire (TFEQ). The data were then analyzed using exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to validate the factor structure of the instruments between observed variables and factors. The results of the EFA showed all items exhibited acceptable communalities, ranging from 0.536 to 0.599, above the recommended threshold of 0.50, and Cronbach's Alpha values were above 0.8, indicating that all variables had satisfactory internal reliability and construct validity. The study validated constructs from this analysis that offer a sound foundation for future research involving larger samples.

KEYWORDS: Quality of life; Eating behaviour; Youth; Mental health; Exploratory factor analysis.



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