Self-reports of diet: how children remember what they have eaten

Determining how children remember what they have eaten may guide the development of specific cues that help children report their diets more accurately. This research used a cognitive-processing approach to examine fourth graders' self-reports of diet. School lunches were observed to determine what was really eaten and the results of these observations were compared with students' reports of what they had eaten and how they remembered that information. Interviews with individual students conducted within 1.5 h of lunch or the following morning included free and prompted report, although prompting was limited to clarifying details about the items and amounts already reported. For analyses, retrieval responses (what the students said in response to the question "how do you remember you ate--?") were categorized. A single measure of accuracy that reflected omissions and intrusions was calculated by comparing the student's report with the observation record. Results from one study are provided, along with preliminary results from two additional studies. Research questions and future plans are highlighted, including a Delphi technique study to develop a consensus set of categories of retrieval responses. More accurate assessment of children's diets could increase awareness of changes needed to help establish healthful eating habits in childhood to decrease the risk of chronic diseases in adulthood.