title: Validation of a youth/adolescent food frequency questionnaire.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  To address limited longitudinal nutrition data on children and adolescents, a self-administered food frequency questionnaire was designed for older children and adolescents. Initially, the Youth/Adolescent Questionnaire (YAQ) was developed and demonstrated to be reproducible. This study was conducted to evaluate its validity.
  
  
  METHODS
  The form was administered twice to a sample of 261 youths (ages 9 to 18) at an approximate interval of 1 year (1993-1994), and three 24-hr dietary recalls were collected during this period. Pearson correlation coefficients were calculated on nutrient data.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Validity was first evaluated by comparing the average of the three 24-hr recalls to the average of the two YAQs. Similar mean nutrients were found by both methods. Correlation coefficients between the mean energy-adjusted nutrients computed by the two methods ranged from 0.21 for sodium to 0.58 for folate. After correction for within-person error, the average correlation coefficient was 0.54, similar to that found among adults.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  A simple self-administered questionnaire completed by older children and adolescents can provide nutritional information about this age group.
authors.affiliation: Channing Laboratory, Brigham & Women's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA.
authors.forename: H R
authors.initials: HR
authors.lastname: Rockett
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Breitenbach
authors.forename: A L
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Frazier
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Witschi
authors.forename: A M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Wolf
authors.forename: A E
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Field
authors.forename: G A
authors.initials: GA
authors.lastname: Colditz
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D017195:Adolescent Nutritional Physiological Phenomena; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D015982:Bias; D002648:Child; D002664:Child Nutritional Physiological Phenomena; D004034:Diet Surveys; D004734:Energy Metabolism; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards*