Fourth-grade children's dietary reporting accuracy by meal component: Results from a validation study that manipulated retention interval and prompts

User Requirements in Developing a Novel Dietary Assessment Tool for Children: Mixed Methods Study

BACKGROUND

The prevalence of childhood obesity and comorbidities is rising alarmingly, and diet is an important modifiable determinant. Numerous dietary interventions in children have been developed to reduce childhood obesity and overweight rates, but their long-term effects are unsatisfactory. Stakeholders call for more personalized approaches, which require detailed dietary intake data. In the case of primary school children, caregivers are key to providing such dietary information. However, as school-aged children are not under the full supervision of one specific caregiver anymore, data are likely to be biased. Recent technological advancements provide opportunities for the role of children themselves, which would serve the overall quality of the obtained dietary data.

OBJECTIVE

This study aims to conduct a child-centered exploratory sequential mixed methods study to identify user requirements for a dietary assessment tool for children aged 5 to 6 years.

METHODS

Formative, nonsystematic narrative literature research was undertaken to delineate initial user requirements and inform prototype ideation in an expert panel workshop (n=11). This yielded 3 prototype dietary assessment tools: FoodBear (tangible piggy bank), myBear (smartphone or tablet app), and FoodCam (physical camera). All 3 prototypes were tested for usability by means of a usability task (video analyses) and user experience (This or That method) among 14 Dutch children aged 5 to 6 years (n=8, 57% boys and n=6, 43% girls).

RESULTS

Most children were able to complete FoodBear's (11/14, 79%), myBear's (10/14, 71%), and FoodCam's (9/14, 64%) usability tasks, but all children required assistance (14/14, 100%) and most of the children encountered usability problems (13/14, 93%). Usability issues were related to food group categorization and recognition, frustrations owing to unsatisfactory functioning of (parts) of the prototypes, recall of food products, and the distinction between eating moments. No short-term differences in product preference between the 3 prototypes were observed, but autonomy, challenge, gaming elements, being tablet based, appearance, social elements, and time frame were identified as determinants of liking the product.

CONCLUSIONS

Our results suggest that children can play a complementary role in dietary data collection to enhance the data collected by their parents. Incorporation of a training program, auditory or visual prompts, reminders and feedback, a user-friendly and intuitive interaction design, child-friendly food groups or icons, and room for children's autonomy were identified as requirements for the future development of a novel and usable dietary assessment tool for children aged 5 to 6 years. Our findings can serve as valuable guidance for ongoing innovations in the field of children's dietary assessment and the provision of personalized dietary support.

Accuracy of Reporting Food Intakes among Primary School Children Aged 7-9 Years

BACKGROUND

Accurate measurement of dietary intake throughout childhood is important to monitor children's growth and development and for their long-term health. However, measuring dietary intake in children is challenging because of misreporting, difficulties in establishing portion size, and heavy reliance on proxy reporters.

OBJECTIVES

This study aimed to determine the accuracy of self-reported food intake by primary school children aged 7-9 y.

METHODS

A total of 105 children (51% boys), aged 8.0 ± 0.8 y, were recruited from three primary schools in Selangor, Malaysia. Individual meal intakes during a school break time were determined using a food photography method as the reference method. The children were then interviewed the following day to assess their recall of their meal intakes the previous day. ANOVA and Kruskal-Wallis tests were used to determine mean differences in the accuracy of reporting food items and amount by age and weight status, respectively.

RESULTS

On average, the children achieved 85.8% match rate, 14.2% omission rate, and 3.2% intrusion rate for accuracy in reporting food items. The children also achieved 85.9% correspondence rate and 6.8% inflation ratio for accuracy in reporting food amounts. Children living with obesity had notably higher intrusion rates compared with normal weight children (10.6% vs. 1.9%) (P < 0.05). Children aged >9 y had notably higher correspondence rates, compared with children aged 7 y (93.3% vs. 78.8%) (P < 0.05).

CONCLUSIONS

The low omission and intrusion rates and the high correspondence rate indicate that primary school children aged 7-9 y are capable of self-reporting food intake accurately for a lunch meal without proxy assistance. However, to confirm children's abilities to report their daily food intakes, further studies should be conducted to assess the accuracy of children in reporting their food intakes for more than one meal in a day.

A comparison of the remote food photography method and the automated self-administered 24-h dietary assessment tool for measuring full-day dietary intake among school-age children

The limitations of self-report measures of dietary intake are well-known. Novel, technology-based measures of dietary intake may provide a more accurate, less burdensome alternative to existing tools. The first objective of this study was to compare participant burden for two technology-based measures of dietary intake among school-age children: the Automated-Self-Administered 24-hour Dietary Assessment Tool-2018 (ASA24-2018) and the Remote Food Photography Method (RFPM). The second objective was to compare reported energy intake for each method to the Estimated Energy Requirement for each child, as a benchmark for actual intake. Forty parent-child dyads participated in two, 3-d dietary assessments: a parent proxy-reported version of the ASA24 and the RFPM. A parent survey was subsequently administered to compare satisfaction, ease of use and burden with each method. A linear mixed model examined differences in total daily energy intake between assessments, and between each assessment method and the Estimated Energy Requirement (EER). Reported energy intake was 379 kcal higher with the ASA24 than the RFPM (P = 0·0002). Reported energy intake with the ASA24 was 231 kcal higher than the EER (P = 0·008). Reported energy intake with the RFPM did not differ significantly from the EER (difference in predicted means = -148 kcal, P = 0·09). Median satisfaction and ease of use scores were five out of six for both methods. A higher proportion of parents reported that the ASA24 was more time-consuming than the RFPM (74·4 % v. 25·6 %, P = 0·002). Utilisation of both methods is warranted given their high satisfaction among parents.

Validation of a Web-Based, Time-Use Application to Assess Children's School Meal Intakes: My E-Diary for Activities and Lifestyle (MEDAL)

My E-Diary for Activities and Lifestyle (MEDAL), a web-based application, was developed to assess the diets of children. This study examined the validity of school recess meals reported by children on MEDAL, using meal photography as the reference. Recess meals were photographed by trained researchers, and food items and portion sizes of recess meals reported on MEDAL were compared to recess meal photos. Validity was assessed by percentages of match, omission and intrusion for food items and percentages of the match, underestimation and overestimation for portion sizes. The Mann–Whitney test and the Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed-rank test examined if sex, school and day of recording influenced the validity of food item reporting. We found that participants (n = 33, aged 10–11 years) recalled 60.2% of food items consumed at recess accurately (matches); omissions (24.6%) were more common than intrusions (15.2%). Omissions tended to be side dishes, and intrusions tended to be high-calorie items. Sex, school and day of recording did not influence validity. For food portion sizes, 58.3% of items were accurately reported. Overestimations (33.3%) were more common than underestimations (8.3%). In conclusion, these children were able to report food items consumed during school recess meals using MEDAL, albeit with limitations on the degree of accuracy.

Relative validity of FFQ to assess food items, energy, macronutrient and micronutrient intake in children and adolescents: a systematic review with meta-analysis

FFQ are one of the most widely used tools of research into nutritional epidemiology, and many studies have been conducted in several countries using this dietary assessment method. The present study aimed to evaluate the relative validity of FFQ, in comparison with other methods, in assessing dietary intake of children and adolescents, through a systematic review. Four electronic databases (Embase, PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science) found sixty-seven articles, which met the inclusion criteria (healthy children and adolescents from 3 to 18 years of age; journal articles written in English, Spanish and Portuguese between 1988 and March 2019; results showing the comparison between the FFQ with other methods of assessment of dietary intake). The articles were analysed by two independent reviewers. A meta-analysis was conducted using correlation coefficients as estimate effects between the FFQ and the reference standard method. Subgroup analysis and meta-regression were performed to identify the probable source of heterogeneity. In fifty-five of the sixty-seven studies, a single dietary assessment method was used to evaluate the FFQ; nine combined the two methods and three used three reference methods. The most widely used reference method was the 24-h recall, followed by the food record. The overall relative validity of the FFQ to estimate energy, macronutrient, certain micronutrient and certain food item intakes in children and adolescents may be considered weak. The study protocol was registered in PROSPERO under number CRD42016038706.