Diet Intake Estimation of Tweens and Teens: The DIETT Study

Self-reported dietary intake currently provides the best approach to quantify foods and nutrients for many nutrition research studies. The interviewer administered 24-hour diet recall is generally considered the best available method; however, it is limited by a high degree of participant burden and cost. A web-based, automated, self-administered 24-hour recall (ASA24-Kids-2014) was recently designed by researchers at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to mimic the interviewer administered 24-hour recall approach to collecting high quality dietary intake data in children and adolescents while minimizing time and cost. Although the ASA24-Kids-2014 is a potentially useful and cost-effective tool for collecting dietary data for research studies in children and adolescents, it has not been validated for use in pediatric populations. A total of 30 adolescents will be recruited to achieve the study aims. For Aim 1, 10 participants will complete one diet recall using ASA24-Kids-2014 and one interviewer administered 24-hour recall. Their feedback on both methods and preference will be assessed. For Aim 2, 20 participants will be randomly assigned to complete six (one per week) web-based or interviewer administered 24-hour recalls. Data from Aim 2 will be analyzed to determine whether the reporting quality decays over time for each method. In addition, feedback from participants in both aims will be collected on specific factors related to the recall methods such as ease of use, technical challenges, flexibility, duration, and database completeness. Results obtained from this pilot study could provide critical information to design a larger method comparison study to rigorously assess the performance of the ASA24-Kids web-based diet recall.

Inclusion criteria

• Adolescents at least 12 years old and no greater than 17 years old who have access to a phone and a desktop or laptop computer.

Exclusion criteria

• Persons having prior experience completing food recalls, either for a research study, or for personal use
• persons having prior experience with mobile food apps, either for research or for personal use
• persons following a special diet
• persons having a mental, physical, or visual limitation that would hinder their ability to use a computer or recall from memory
• Non-English speakers are excluded because using an interpreter could increase the length of time it takes to complete a dietary food recall thus, possibly skewing the data.
• those with self-reported body mass index (BMI) less than the 5th or greater than the 85th percentile (as determined during telephone screen)