Development, sensitivity and reliability of a French version of the Leeds food preference questionnaire (LFPQ-fr) for the evaluation of food preferences and reward.

Background: There is a growing global interest in the evaluation of food reward, necessitating the adaptation of culturally appropriate instruments for use in empirical studies. This work presents the development and validation of a culturally adapted French version of the Leeds Food Preference Questionnaire (LFPQ-fr).

Methods: The LFPQ-fr was developed and validated in healthy-weight adults using the following systematic approach: i) selection and validation of appropriate food pictures; ii) linguistic translation of liking and wanting constructs in the target population (n = 430; 81% female; 42.2 ± 12.7 years); iii) validation of the sensitivity and reliability of the task performed in a fasted state and in response to a standardized test meal (n = 50; 50% female; 30.0 ± 8.4 years).

Results: During the first and second phases, the nutritional and perceptual validation of culturally appropriate food pictures and pertinent reward constructs, respectively, was demonstrated in a healthy-weight French sample. Findings from the third phase indicated that all food reward components were sensitive to the test meal and showed moderate to high agreement in both fasted (Lin's CCC =0.72-0.94) and fed (Lin's CCC = 0.53-0.80) appetitive states between visit 1 (V1) and visit (V2). Except for explicit liking fat bias, all primary outcomes were statistically consistent in fasted and fed states between V1 and V2. Changes in fat and taste biases in response to a standardized meal for all primary outcomes were also consistent between V1 and V2 except for explicit liking fat bias (Lin's CCC = 0.49- 0.72).

Conclusion: The LFPQ-fr developed and tested in this study is a reproducible and reliable method to assess food reward in both the fasted and fed states in a healthy-weight French population.