Children's recalls from five dietary-reporting validation studies. Intrusions in correctly reported and misreported options in school breakfast reports

• Published in: Appetite 2008-11, Vol.51 (3), p.489-500
• Main Authors: Baxter, Suzanne Domel, Hardin, James W., Royer, Julie A., Guinn, Caroline H., Smith, Albert F.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Accuracy; Biological and medical sciences; breakfast cereals; Child; child nutrition; Children; cold foods; cooked foods; diet recall; Diet Surveys; Dietary recalls; Eating - psychology; Edible Grain; elementary students; Feeding. Feeding behavior; Female; Food - classification; food intake; Food Services - standards; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; hot foods; Humans; Intrusions; Male; Meal observations; Medical sciences; Memory - physiology; Mental Recall; Metabolic diseases; misreporting; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Ready-to-eat cereal; ready-to-eat foods; Reproducibility of Results; School breakfast; Schools; Sensitivity and Specificity; Time Factors; uneaten items; Validation; Vertebrates: anatomy and physiology, studies on body, several organs or systems
• ISSN: 0195-6663; 1095-8304
• DOI: 10.1016/j.appet.2008.03.013

For school breakfast each day, many elementary schools offer a choice between a cold option that includes ready-to-eat (RTE) cereal and a hot option that includes a non-RTE-cereal entrée such as waffles. For breakfast reports, intrusions (reports of uneaten items) in correctly reported and misreported breakfast options were examined using data from five dietary-reporting validation studies. In each study, fourth-grade children were observed eating school breakfast and school lunch and then interviewed to obtain a dietary recall. A breakfast option was correctly reported in 240 breakfast reports for 203 intrusions total, and misreported in 97 breakfast reports for 189 intrusions total. Asymmetry was evident in misreported options; specifically, children observed eating a cold option almost never misreported a hot option, but children observed eating a hot option often misreported a cold option. Proportionately more breakfast reports were intrusion-free when a breakfast option was correctly reported than misreported. Linking of intrusions (i.e., multiple intrusions from the same option in a breakfast report) was especially evident with misreported breakfast options. Methodological aspects of dietary recalls such as target period (prior 24h; previous day), interview time (morning; afternoon; evening), and interview format (meal; open) had implications for intrusions and misreported breakfast options.