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Updated: Jul 20, 2026
'Boden Food Plate': Novel Interactive Web-based Method for the Assessment of Dietary Intake
Published on: September 18, 2018
Validation and reproducibility of a semi-quantitative Food Frequency Questionnaire for use in elderly Swiss women
E Wynn Dumartheray1, M-A Krieg, J Cornuz
1Outpatient Clinic, Lausanne University Hospital, Lausanne, Switzerland. emma.wynn@chuv.ch
Objective:
The principal aim of this study was to develop a Swiss Food Frequency Questionnaire (FFQ) for the elderly population for use in a study to investigate the influence of nutritional factors on bone health. The secondary aim was to assess its validity and both short-term and long-term reproducibility.
Design:
A 4-day weighed record (4 d WR) was applied to 51 randomly selected women of a mean age of 80.3 years. Subsequently, a detailed FFQ was developed, cross-validated against a further 44 4-d WR, and the short- (1 month, n = 15) and long-term (12 months, n = 14) reproducibility examined.
Setting:
French speaking part of Switzerland.
Subjects:
The subjects were randomly selected women recruited from the Swiss Evaluation of the Methods of Measurement of Osteoporotic Fracture cohort study.
Results:
Mean energy intakes by 4-d WR and FFQ showed no significant difference [1564.9 kcal (SD 351.1); 1641.3 kcal (SD 523.2) respectively]. Mean crude nutrient intakes were also similar (with nonsignifcant P-values examining the differences in intake) and ranged from 0.13 (potassium) to 0.48 (magnesium). Similar results were found in the reproducibility studies.
Conclusion:
These findings provide evidence that this FFQ adequately estimates nutrient intakes and can be used to rank individuals within distributions of intake in specific populations.
