Relative Validity and Reproducibility of a Food-Frequency Questionnaire for Estimating Food Intakes among Flemish Preschoolers

Inge Huybrechts, Guy De Backer, Dirk De Bacquer, Lea Maes and Stefaan De Henauw
Additional contact information
Inge Huybrechts: Department of Public Health, Ghent University, University Hospital 2BlokA, De Pintelaan 185, 9000 Gent, Belgium
Guy De Backer: Department of Public Health, Ghent University, University Hospital 2BlokA, De Pintelaan 185, 9000 Gent, Belgium
Dirk De Bacquer: Department of Public Health, Ghent University, University Hospital 2BlokA, De Pintelaan 185, 9000 Gent, Belgium
Lea Maes: Department of Public Health, Ghent University, University Hospital 2BlokA, De Pintelaan 185, 9000 Gent, Belgium
Stefaan De Henauw: Department of Public Health, Ghent University, University Hospital 2BlokA, De Pintelaan 185, 9000 Gent, Belgium

IJERPH, 2009, vol. 6, issue 1, 1-18

Abstract: The aims of this study were to assess the relative validity and reproducibility of a semi-quantitative food-frequency questionnaire (FFQ) applied in a large region-wide survey among 2.5-6.5 year-old children for estimating food group intakes. Parents/guardians were used as a proxy. Estimated diet records (3d) were used as reference method and reproducibility was measured by repeated FFQ administrations five weeks apart. In total 650 children were included in the validity analyses and 124 in the reproducibility analyses. Comparing median FFQ1 to FFQ2 intakes, almost all evaluated food groups showed median differences within a range of ± 15%. However, for median vegetables, fruit and cheese intake, FFQ1 was > 20% higher than FFQ2. For most foods a moderate correlation (0.5-0.7) was obtained between FFQ1 and FFQ2. For cheese, sugared drinks and fruit juice intakes correlations were even > 0.7. For median differences between the 3d EDR and the FFQ, six food groups (potatoes & grains; vegetables Fruit; cheese; meat, game, poultry and fish; and sugared drinks) gave a difference > 20%. The largest corrected correlations (>0.6) were found for the intake of potatoes and grains, fruit, milk products, cheese, sugared drinks, and fruit juice, while the lowest correlations (

Keywords: Relative validity; reproducibility; FFQ; food intake; preschool; children; Belgium (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/6/1/382/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/6/1/382/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:6:y:2009:i:1:p:382-399:d:3889

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().