Reliability and validity of a short FFQ for assessing the dietary habits of 2–5-year-old children, Sydney, Australia

• Published in: Public health nutrition Vol. 17; no. 3; pp. 498 - 509
• Main Authors: Flood, Victoria M, Wen, Li Min, Hardy, Louise L, Rissel, Chris, Simpson, Judy M, Baur, Louise A
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge, UK Cambridge University Press 01.03.2014
• Subjects: Agreements; Assessment and Methodology; Australia; Biological and medical sciences; biscuits; cakes; Child, Preschool; children; Children & youth; correlation; Correlation coefficient; Cross-Sectional Studies; Diet; Diet Records; Diseases of the digestive system; doughnuts; eating habits; Energy Intake; Feeding Behavior - psychology; Female; Food; food consumption; food intake; food records; fruit drinks; Fruits; General aspects; Health Promotion - standards; Humans; juices; lean meat; Life Style; Male; Meat; Medical sciences; milk; monitoring; Nutrition Assessment; Nutrition Surveys - instrumentation; Nutrition Surveys - methods; Nutrition Surveys - standards; Obesity - prevention & control; parents; Parents & parenting; Parents - psychology; Population; potato chips; processed meat; Program Evaluation; Radiotherapy. Instrumental treatment. Physiotherapy. Reeducation. Rehabilitation, orthophony, crenotherapy. Diet therapy and various other treatments (general aspects); Reproducibility of Results; snack foods; Socioeconomic Factors; soft drinks; Software; Surveys and Questionnaires - standards; sweets; takeout foods; Urban Population; Validity; Vegetables; Australia; Oceania; Canada; Validity; Repeatability; Dietary assessment; Pre-school children; Human; Preschool age; Evaluation; Test reliability; Feeding; Test validation; School age; Diet therapy; Diet; Child; Food
• ISSN: 1368-9800; 1475-2727; 1475-2727
• DOI: 10.1017/S1368980013000414

A simple FFQ which ranks young children's dietary habits is necessary for population-based monitoring and intervention programmes. The aim of the present study was to determine the reliability and validity of a short FFQ to assess the dietary habits of young children aged 2-5 years. Parents completed a seventeen-item FFQ for their children by telephone on two occasions, two weeks apart. Sixty-four parents also completed 3 d food records for their children. The FFQ included daily servings of fruit and vegetables, frequency of eating lean meat, processed meats, take-away food, snack foods (biscuits, cakes, doughnuts, muesli bars), potato crisps and confectionery, and cups of soft drinks/cordials, juice, milk and water. Weighted kappa and intra-class correlation coefficients were used to assess FFQ reliability and the Bland-Altman method was used to assess validity of the FFQ compared with the 3 d food record. Seven pre-school centres in metropolitan Sydney, Australia. Seventy-seven children aged 2-5 years. The majority of questions had moderate to good reliability: κ w ranged from 0·37 (lean meat) to 0·85 (take-away food consumption). Validity analysis showed a significant increase in mean values from the food record with increasing ordered categories from the FFQ for servings of vegetables and fruit and cups of drinks (all trend P ≤ 0·01). Spearman rank correlation coefficient was >0·5 for vegetables, fruit, diet soft drinks and fruit juice. The FFQ provides reliable and moderately valid information about the dietary intakes and habits of children aged 2-5 years, in particular for fruit, vegetables and beverages.