Abstract
Background Food parenting behaviors have been increasingly critical to adolescent nutritional health. These behaviors play a decisive role in shaping food intake and weight status in adolescents through autonomy support, coercive control, modeling habits, healthy structure, and determining snacking patterns. To our knowledge, there is no available food parenting questionnaire in the Arabic version; therefore, a reliable and validated Arabic version of the questionnaire to assess food parenting behavior among Iraqi adolescents is required. The aim of this study was to translate, culturally adapt, and validate the Adolescent Food Parenting Questionnaire (AFPQ) into Arabic (AFPQ-A) for adolescents aged 16 to 18 in Kut City, Iraq. Methodology The original version of AFPQ was translated according to a 10-step protocol after being authorized by the developer. The modified kappa statistic (κ(m)), the sum content validity index/universal agreement (S-CVI/UA) method, the scale-level content validity index average (S-CVI/Ave), and the item-level content validity index (I-CVI) were used by four independent experts to assess the content validity of the AFPQ for adolescents and parenting. Face validity was assessed among the adolescents (n = 30) and their respective parents. Results The translation process into the Arabic version produced minor modifications to the original questionnaire. The S-CVI/Ave score for the parent version was 0.95, while the I-CVI/UA score was 0.81 for the adolescent version. The κ(m) values of 1.00 were found in the majority of the items. These scores indicated that the AFPQ items possessed good content validity. Both the parent and adolescent versions demonstrated excellent face validity, with the sum of face validity index/average (S-FVI) scores of 0.95 and 0.94, respectively. Conclusion The AFPQ-A has been demonstrated to be a valid and reliable instrument for the assessment of food parenting behaviors in Iraqi adolescents.