Spanish children's diet: compliance with nutrient and food intake guidelines

Abstract

Objective: To compare the diet of Spanish children against the nutrient and food intake guidelines. To calculate an index of overall diet quality and check its validity against nutrient intake. Design and setting: Cross-sectional study in four cities in Spain, where information on food and nutrient intake was obtained from schoolchildren through a food frequency questionnaire. Participants: The sample included 1112 children (overall response rate of 85%) attending public and private schools and aged 6-7 y. Children were selected through random cluster sampling in schools, and stratified by sex and socioeconomic level. Main Outcome Measures: Mean nutrient intake, number of food servings, and the percentage of children who meet recommended nutrient and food-serving intake levels. The overall dietary quality was assessed using the Healthy Eating Index (HEI). Results: Mean micronutrient intake exceeded 100% of the recommended dietary allowances, except for vitamin B6, which registered a mean intake of 77.1%. For almost all children, intake of saturated fat was above, and that of carbohydrate below, the recommended level, in contrast to the relatively high compliance with the recommendations for poly-and monounsaturated fatty acid, salt and fiber intake (69.7, 43.7, 40.7, and 30.1%, respectively). Consumption of food servings for each of the five American pyramid food groups came close to or exceeded USDA guidelines, with the exception of cereals, with 5.4 servings per day. The mean score obtained in the HEI was 64.6. Children who complied with all the food guide pyramid recommendations registered a higher dietary variety and a healthier nutritional profile. Conclusions: Children aged 6-7 y show scant compliance with the macronutrient goals for healthy eating. Micronutrient intake is adequate in general, yet there are small groups of children with risk of deficient intake of vitamins B6 and D. While Spanish children's eating habits are reasonably in line with American food guide pyramid guidelines, consumptions of cereals and fruit should be improved.

Assessing children's diet quality in Crete based on Healthy Eating Index: The Children Study

“…Moreover, the mean value of the HEI score was almost 61. This finding is partially in agreement with those detected in other similar studies conducted in the United States of America and Spain (Batsiotis et al, 2002;Royo-Bordonada et al, 2003;Feskanich et al, 2004;Knol Batsiotis et al (2002) reported that the mean value of the HEI score was 66 for children aged 7-10 years, 61.4 and 60.8 for females and males aged 11-14 years, respectively . A little higher HEI score was found in a study carried out among the US children aged 6-11 years (that is, the HEI mean score ranged between 63.2 and 69.9) and in lowincome US children aged 4-8 years (that is, the HEI mean score was 65.8 for light eaters and 69.6 for substituters) (Knol et al, 2005;LaRowe et al, 2007).…”

Evaluation of dietary fibre intake from infancy to adolescence against various references – results of the DONALD Study

“…The few existing studies dealing with dietary fibre intake in infants, children and adolescents from industrialized countries reported intakes below the respective reference used (Nicklas et al, 1995b;Hampl et al, 1998;Decarli et al, 2000;Royo-Bordonada et al, 2003). There is particular lack of data concerning possible long-term changes in dietary habits, especially in children and adolescents of Western industrialized countries.…”

Diet quality in European pre-schoolers: evaluation based on diet quality indices and association with gender, socio-economic status and overweight, the ToyBox-study

“…However, the diet of European (pre-school) children is found to be poor as many children do not reach the dietary guidelines (3)(4)(5)(6) . Nevertheless, comparison between countries and different studies is difficult because of the variety of measurement methods used to asses dietary status in pre-schoolers.…”

“…Also, little is still known about the relationship between overweight and diet quality in preschoolers. Unhealthy food choices can lead to overweight or obesity, so a difference in diet quality could be expected according to weight status, with pre-school children with overweight or obesity having lower scores than pre-schoolers with a normal weight (5,12,18,19) . In addition, an interaction between gender, SES and overweight can be expected.…”

“…Studies that investigate the multidimensional nature of eating patterns in pre-schoolers are scarce. Current studies often have a narrow focus on one or more food items or are regional (3)(4)(5)(6)(7) . A Flemish study using the DQI for preschoolers of Huybrechts et al found rather low scores on diet quality in pre-schoolers (7) .…”