Food preparation and meal serving practices. Food preparation was as- sessed through 15 items that asked how often in the past month partici- pants served healthier food options or prepared foods using healthy cooking methods.32,33 Prior studies documented Cronbach alpha ran- ging from .55 to .8231,33; it was .64 in the current study. Meal-serving practices focused on strategies with potential to decrease portion size, including using smaller plates, serving smaller amounts of food, and not serving food family style. Both scores are the means of the items.