Validity and reliability of food frequency questions to assess beverages, fruits and vegetables, and sweetened food intakes among 2‐ to 4‐y‐old WIC children (1022.6)

Fruits, vegetables, sweetened foods and beverages have been found to have positive and negative associations with obesity in early childhood, yet no rapid assessment tools are available to measure intake of these foods among preschoolers. This study examines the test‐retest reliability and relative validity of a ten item Beverages and Food Intake Questionnaire (BFIQ) designed to assess fruit, vegetable, and sweetened foods and beverage intake among 2‐ to 4‐y‐old children. The BFIQ was developed for use in periodic phone surveys conducted with low‐income families with preschool‐aged children. Seventy six primary caregivers of 2‐ to 4‐year‐old children enrolled in WIC completed two BFIQs within a two‐week period for test‐retest reliability. Participants also completed three 24‐hour recalls to allow assessment of validity. Spearman’s rank correlation coefficients (SCC) were used to examine validity and intra‐class correlations (ICC) were used to examine test‐retest reliability. SCCs ranged from 0.15 to 0.59 for beverages with 0.46 for sugar‐sweetened beverages. SCCs for fruits, vegetables and sweetened food were 0.31, 0.34 and 0.3 respectively. ICCs between BFIQ administrations ranged from 0.48 for sweetened drinks to 0.87 for regular sodas. ICCs for fruits, vegetables and sweetened food were 0.56, 0.49, and 0.56 respectively. The BFIQ exhibited fair to substantial test‐retest reliability and moderate to strong validity in ranking fruits, vegetables, sweetened food and the majority of beverages consumed by children aged 2 to 4. Given the scarcity of an easily administered, valid and reliable questionnaire to assess nutritional intake among 2‐4 year‐old low‐income children, this tool may be useful for large‐scale studies of the relation between diet and obesity in young children. Grant Funding Source : Supported by First 5 LA