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Development and validation of an instrument to assess child dietary fat intake
B A Dennison1, P L Jenkins, H L Rockwell
1Bassett Healthcare, Mary Imogene Bassett Research Institute, Cooperstown, New York 13326, USA. barbara.dennison@bassett.org
Insights
A new 17-item Child Dietary Fat Questionnaire (CDFQ) effectively assesses total fat, saturated fatty acids (SFA), and cholesterol intake in young children. This tool aids in identifying children with high or low dietary intakes of these key nutrients.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric Nutrition
- Dietary Assessment Tools
- Public Health Nutrition
Background:
- Childhood diet quality is crucial for long-term health.
- Accurate and efficient dietary assessment is needed for young children.
- Existing methods may be too time-consuming for routine screening.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop and validate a brief dietary assessment instrument for young children.
- To specifically measure intakes of total fat, saturated fatty acids (SFA), and cholesterol.
- To create a tool for identifying children with potentially unhealthy dietary patterns.
Main Methods:
- Recruitment of young children from primary care and Head Start programs.
- Utilized 4-day dietary records analyzed with the Minnesota Nutrition Data System.
- Employed stepwise linear regression to select questionnaire items predicting nutrient intake.
Main Results:
- Developed a 17-item Child Dietary Fat Questionnaire (CDFQ).
- CDFQ showed significant correlations with total fat (r=0.68), SFA (r=0.75), and cholesterol (r=0.57) intakes.
- Demonstrated acceptable test-retest reliability and criterion-based validity.
Conclusions:
- The 17-item CDFQ is a brief and user-friendly dietary assessment tool.
- It can effectively identify children with high or low intakes of total fat, SFA, and cholesterol.
- The CDFQ is suitable for use in clinical and public health settings for nutritional screening.
Background:
brief dietary assessment instrument to assess dietary intakes of total fat, saturated fatty acids (SFA), and cholesterol in young children was developed and validated.
Methods:
Young children and their parent or primary caretaker were recruited from a general primary care health center and local Head Start programs. Dietary records, entered and analyzed using the Minnesota Nutrition Data System, were used to calculate children's mean dietary intakes. Stepwise linear regression analysis was used to select questionnaire items that best predicted total fat, SFA, and dietary cholesterol intakes.
Results:
This yielded a 17-item Child Dietary Fat Questionnaire (CDFQ); 9 questions correlated with total fat intake (r = 0.68, P < 0.0001); 15 questions correlated with SFA intake (r = 0.75, P < 0.0001); and 4 questions correlated with dietary cholesterol intake (r = 0.57, P < 0.0001). The test-retest reliabilities of the CDFQ in predicting children's dietary intakes of total fat, SFA, and cholesterol were 0.41, 0.66, and 0.64, respectively. The criterion-based validity of the CDFQ, evaluated against 4 days of dietary records, yielded correlations of 0.54 (P < 0.0001) for total fat, 0.36 (P < 0.01) for SFA, and 0.55 (P < 0. 0001) for dietary cholesterol intake.
Conclusions:
The 17-item CDFQ is a brief, easy-to-use dietary assessment instrument that could be used to identify children with high, as well as low, dietary intakes of total fat, SFA, and/or cholesterol.
