A new FFQ designed to measure the intake of fatty acids and antioxidants in children

Abstract

Objective: The present paper describes the systematic development of an FFQ to assess the intake of fatty acids and antioxidants in school-aged children. In addition, a validation study applying 24 h dietary recalls was performed. Design: Using the variance-based Max_r method, a list of eighty-two foods was compiled from data obtained by 3 d weighed dietary records. The foods were used to design an FFQ, the comprehensibility of which was evaluated in a feasibility study. In addition, the FFQ was validated in a subset of 101 children from the German Infant Nutritional Intervention Study (GINI PLUS) against one 24 h dietary recall. Results: The feasibility study attested a good acceptance of the FFQ. Mean intake of foods compared well between the FFQ and the 24 h dietary recall, although intake data generated from the FFQ tended to be higher. This difference became less apparent at the nutrient level, although the estimated average consumption of arachidonic acid and EPA using the FFQ still exceeded values recorded with the 24 h recall method by 45 % and 29 %, respectively. Conclusions: On the basis of the systematic selection process of the food list, the established practicability of the FFQ and the overall plausibility of the results, the use of this FFQ is justified in future epidemiological studies.

Validity and Reliability of a Dish-based, Semi-quantitative Food Frequency Questionnaire for Korean Diet and Cancer Research

“…Zemel et al (2010) argue that this result may be due to a tendency for respondents to describe their ideal intake, rather than actual intake, in FFQ interviews. These effects might have contributed to an overestimation of vegetables and underestimation of fat reported in other studies (Brunner et al, 2001;Stiegler et al, 2010;Subar et al, 2001).…”

Validation of an FFQ to assess short-term antioxidant intake against 30 d food records and plasma biomarkers

“…To sum up, the correlation analysis along with the agreement categorization provided sufficient data to judge the overall ability of the FFQ on dietary antioxidant estimation and emphasized the reasonable validity of this new instrument. Biochemical indicators of dietary intake are another useful approach to weigh FFQ validity, although this method is still prone to random and systematic errors (6) . In the present study, associations between questionnairederived antioxidant intakes and biomarkers were comparable to or stronger than those reported by the previous studies applying biomarkers (38,44,45,(49)(50)(51) .…”

Food Intake and Overweight in School-Aged Children in Germany: Results of the GINIplus and LISAplus Studies

“…The details and effectiveness of the FFQ have been published elsewhere [25]. Briefly, information on food intake frequencies and portion sizes of 82 food items were collected using parent-completed questionnaires.…”