Longitudinal measurement of three eating behavior scales during a period of change

British students were tested three times per year immediately after entering university on a battery of tests, including eating behavior scales (Variety Seeking Tendency Scale, Food Neophobia Scale, and the Restrained Eating scale of the Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire). Repeated testing indicated high stability of the measured eating behavior scales over the study period of 1¯2 years. Thus, food attitudes remained stable even during a major period of change in peopleʹs lives when young people left home. The stability of the average measures of the three eating behaviors scales indicates that groups can be characterized by their scores. There was no gender effect for Variety Seeking Tendency or Food Neophobia but there was for Restrained Eating, as previously reported. Test¯retest correlations for the same subjects were generally in the range 0.6¯0.8. The correlation between Variety Seeking Tendency Food Neophobia was -0.6.