P1-480 Validation of a food frequency questionnaire to assess diet in children aged 4-5 years

Accuracy of self-reported intake of signature foods in a school meal intervention study: comparison between control and intervention period

Bias in self-reported dietary intake is important when evaluating the effect of dietary interventions, particularly for intervention foods. However, few have investigated this in children, and none have investigated the reporting accuracy of fish intake in children using biomarkers. In a Danish school meal study, 8- to 11-year-old children (n 834) were served the New Nordic Diet (NND) for lunch. The present study examined the accuracy of self-reported intake of signature foods (berries, cabbage, root vegetables, legumes, herbs, potatoes, wild plants, mushrooms, nuts and fish) characterising the NND. Children, assisted by parents, self-reported their diet in a Web-based Dietary Assessment Software for Children during the intervention and control (packed lunch) periods. The reported fish intake by children was compared with their ranking according to fasting whole-blood EPA and DHA concentration and weight percentage using the Spearman correlations and cross-classification. Direct observation of school lunch intake (n 193) was used to score the accuracy of food-reporting as matches, intrusions, omissions and faults. The reporting of all lunch foods had higher percentage of matches compared with the reporting of signature foods in both periods, and the accuracy was higher during the control period compared with the intervention period. Both Spearman's rank correlations and linear mixed models demonstrated positive associations between EPA+DHA and reported fish intake. The direct observations showed that both reported and real intake of signature foods did increase during the intervention period. In conclusion, the self-reported data represented a true increase in the intake of signature foods and can be used to examine dietary intervention effects.

Evaluation of Web-based Dietary Assessment Software for Children: comparing reported fruit, juice and vegetable intakes with plasma carotenoid concentration and school lunch observations

Web-based Dietary Assessment Software for Children (WebDASC) was developed to estimate dietary intake in a school meal intervention study among 8- to 11-year-old Danish children. The present study validates self-reported fruit, juice and vegetable (FJV) intakes in 8- to 11-year-old children by comparing intake with plasma carotenoid concentration, and by comparing the reported FJV intake to actually eaten FJV, as observed by a photographic method. A total of eighty-one children, assisted by parents, reported their diet for seven consecutive days. For the same five schooldays as they reported their diet, the children's school lunch was photographed and weighed before and after eating. In the week after the diet reporting, fasting blood samples were taken. Self-reported intake of FJV and estimated intake of carotenoids were compared with plasma carotenoid concentration. Accuracy of self-reported food and FJV consumption at school lunch was measured in terms of matches, intrusion, omission and faults, when compared with images and weights of lunch intake. Self-reported intake of FJV was significantly correlated with the total carotenoid concentration (0·58) (P< 0·01). Fruit and juice consumption showed higher correlations than vegetables with plasma carotenoid concentration (0·38 and 0·42 v. 0·33) (P< 0·01). A total of 82 % of the participants fell into the same or adjacent quartiles when cross-classified by FJV intake and carotenoids biomarkers. WebDASC attained 82 % reporting matches overall and a higher percentage match for reporting fruits compared with beverages. The present study indicated that WebDASC can be used to rank 8- to 11-year-old Danish children according to their intake of FJV overall and at school meals.