title: Nutrient intake variability and number of days needed to assess intake in preschool children.
abstract: The duration of the period of time during which diet should be recorded for sufficiently accurate results on the usual intake of an individual is an especially challenging issue in prospective studies among children. We set out to describe nutrient intake variability in preschoolers and to determine the number of record days required (D) to estimate intake of energy and thirty-two nutrients. The diet and the use of dietary supplements were assessed with three consecutive daily food records including one weekend day in 1639 children participating in the population-based birth cohort of the Type 1 Diabetes Prediction and Prevention Project (DIPP) in Finland. Variance ratios and D stratified by sex and age groups were calculated for 455 (1-year-old), 471 (3-year-old) and 713 (6-year-old) children (born between 1998 and 2003). Within:between variance ratios and D increase with increasing age, and are slightly higher for girls. Vitamin A, cholesterol, n-3 and n-6 fatty acids, β-carotene and folate intakes require the most replicates. Including supplemental intake has an impact on the variance estimates according to the proportion of supplement users. In the DIPP Nutrition Study with 3 d food records, the correlation coefficients between observed and true intakes of energy and thirty-two nutrients averaged 0·91 in 1-year-old children, 0·79 in 3-year-old children and 0·74 in 6-year-old children. For providing accurate nutrient intake estimates, three replicates of food records are reasonable in 1-year-old children but must be questioned for several nutrients in 3- and 6-year-old children. The accuracy of ranking boys is greater than that for girls.
authors.affiliation: Division of Nutrition, Department of Food and Environmental Sciences, PO Box 66, FI-00014, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland. maijaliisa.erkkola@gmail.com
authors.forename: Maijaliisa
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Erkkola
authors.forename: Pipsa
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Kyttälä
authors.forename: Hanna-Mari
authors.initials: HM
authors.lastname: Takkinen
authors.forename: Carina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Kronberg-Kippilä
authors.forename: Jaakko
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Nevalainen
authors.forename: Olli
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Simell
authors.forename: Jorma
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ilonen
authors.forename: Riitta
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Veijola
authors.forename: Mikael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Knip
authors.forename: Suvi M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Virtanen
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D002664:Child Nutritional Physiological Phenomena / Q000502:physiology*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D015331:Cohort Studies; D004032:Diet; D015930:Diet Records; D004034:Diet Surveys; D005260:Female; D005387:Finland; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D018673:Nutrition Policy; D013997:Time Factors