Validation of adolescent diet recalled by adults.
BACKGROUND
Few studies have examined the validity of adolescent diet as recalled by adults many years later.


METHODS
In this investigation, we examined the validity of a 124-item food frequency questionnaire (HS-FFQ) completed by 80 young adults in the United States about their diet during high school. We compared the HS-FFQ with 3 24-hour recalls and 2 food-frequency questionnaires (YAQ) collected 10 years earlier in 1993, when the participants were in high school. We calculated Pearson correlation coefficients for 20 to 25 nutrients and corrected these correlations for within-person variation.


RESULTS
The average corrected correlation for energy-adjusted nutrient intakes calculated from the HS-FFQ and the 24-hour recalls was 0.45 (range = 0.16-0.68). The mean corrected correlation between the HS-FFQ and YAQs was 0.58 (range = 0.40-0.88).


CONCLUSIONS
Taken together with the results of our earlier work, this analysis suggests that the HS-FFQ can reasonably capture adolescent diet recalled by young adults.
Channing Laboratory, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA. sonia.maruti@channing.harvard.edu
Sonia S
SS
Maruti
Diane
D
Feskanich
Helaine R
HR
Rockett
Graham A
GA
Colditz
Laura A
LA
Sampson
Walter C
WC
Willett
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D004032:Diet; D004034:Diet Surveys; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall; D014481:United States