Comparative Study of a New Dietary Screener to Assess Food Groups of Concern in Children

Background: Although there are several valid and reliable dietary screeners to measure child intake patterns, there is a paucity of brief assessment tools targeting under- and overconsumed foods. Objective: To compare the Fueling Learning through Exercise study (FLEX) dietary questionnaire, a screener designed to assess consumption patterns in third to fifth graders, to a validated dietary assessment tool. Methods: The FLEX dietary questionnaire was developed to assess fruit, vegetable, snack, and beverage consumption and was compared to the Block Kids Food Screener (BKFS). Correlations were analyzed using Pearson correlation coefficient. Agreement was assessed using Bland-Altman plots. Results: The sample (n = 63) had mean age of 9.9 years (SD 0.7). Most participants were non-Hispanic white (70%) and eligible for free/reduced price lunch (57%). Correlations between food group categories were significant for all groups ( P < .05) except fruits ( r = 0.51) and sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) ( r = 0.21). We found moderate-to-strong correlations between reported vegetable, salty snack, sweet snack, total beverage, milk, and fruit juice consumption (0.62, 0.59, 0.69, 0.47, 0.48, and 0.46, respectively). The FLEX screener reported systematically higher mean servings per day (0.24-1.1) compared to the BKFS (0.05-0.51). Conclusion: Based on these correlations, the FLEX dietary questionnaire performs similarly to a validated tool in assessing intake of under- and overconsumed food groups in a diverse third to fifth grade population. Overall serving size discrepancies are likely due to more relevant food items on the FLEX questionnaire and a more child-friendly format. This study highlights the need to update older diet screeners to reflect current child consumption patterns.