CONTEXT AND OBJECTIVE: Lifestyle includes the personal attitudes or behavioral patterns that result in risks or benefits to the individual's own health or that of others. Children's health is particularly determined by their mother's lifestyle. The objective here was to develop and evaluate the reliability of a questionnaire capable of describing the lifestyles of preschoolers' mothers in terms of their activities, interests, opinions and values. DESIGN AND SETTING: Cross-sectional study conducted in a public university. METHODS: This study was conducted between January 2010 and March 2011, among 255 mothers of preschoolers living in the southeastern region of the municipality of São Paulo. A proportional stratified random probabilistic sample with two strata was selected: schools were drawn and then the children. Three instruments found in the literature were used to create the lifestyle questionnaire. The questionnaire was developed in eight stages: preliminary pretest, cultural adaptation, second pretest, pilot study, semantic correction and adaptation, third pretest, final research and final retest. Cronbach's alpha and pairwise correlation coefficients were used. RESULTS: The Cronbach's alpha value in the final version was 0.83 and the pre and post-test pairwise correlation coefficients were greater than 0.5. Factor analysis identified five factors that explained 73.51% of the correlation variance. As a result, seven variables were eliminated from the questionnaire. CONCLUSIONS: The questionnaire described five lifestyle domains, with good reliability, and can be used in combination with preschoolers' health and nutritional outcomes. RESUMO

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Introduction: Many of the health behaviors involved in the emergence of chronic non-communicable diseases (CNCD) are originated in childhood under parental influence. Mothers are the ones most involved in the education and health care of children. Lifestyle (LS) is a social determinant of health. Very few studies tried to understand the influence of maternal LS on child nutrition. Objective: To verify the association between maternal behavioral and non-behavioral LS and nutritional aspects in preschool children. Method: From January 2010 to December 2010, we performed a cross-sectional study with 255 mothers of preschool children who were residents of five different sub-districts in southwestern São Paulo. A proportional stratified random sample was selected using two layers ("schools" and "children"). From the mother, sociodemographic and LS information were collected. From the child, data on anthropometry, sedentary behavior and food intake were collected. The association was calculated using chi-square test and logistic regression. Results: Children who ate minimally processed food were born from mothers with more socially aware non-behavioral LS, while children that ate more processed food were born from mothers with more consumerist non-behavioral LS. No association was found between nutritional characteristics of preschoolers and types of maternal behavioral LS. Children presenting "sedentary behavior" and the habit of eating "ultra-processed foods" had 113% and 84% higher chances, respectively, of being born to mothers that belonged to the "consumerist" cluster. Conclusion: Mothers living a consumerist lifestyle can promote negative influences on child nutrition.

Descritores: relações mãe-filho; estilo de vida; pré-escolar; estado nutricional; atividade motora; nutrição da criança; análise fatorial.