title: Assessing Hydration in Children: From Science to Practice.
abstract: Raising children's awareness about their hydration status could be done through a noninvasive biomarker. Urine color (UC) has been validated as a biomarker of hydration in adults and children aged 8-14 years. The aim of this survey was to design and to evaluate the level of understanding and attractiveness of a self-assessment, UC-based hydration tool for children aged 6-11 years. The first phase of the survey consisted of face-to-face interviews during which 84 children identified those graphical elements necessary to understand the hydration message from 6 illustration-based designs containing the UC chart. The graphic elements selected were the basis to create 3 new designs. During the 2nd phase, the level of understanding and attractiveness of these 3 new designs was then evaluated via an online questionnaire by a total of 1,231 children in 3 countries. The design with the highest level of understanding was totally or partially understood by 76% of the participants, independent of age and gender. The levels of understanding, however, differed in the countries. In Indonesia, the levels of understanding of the 3 designs were comparable; whereas in both France (74%) and Mexico (78%), significantly more participants totally and partially understood one of the 3 designs. The levels of attractiveness of the 3 designs were comparable, independent of country, age, and gender. On average, 80% of all participants liked the 3 designs a bit or a lot. Only 14% did not like the designs, and 5% of participants had no opinion regarding attractiveness. These results indicated that three out of four children like and understand the correct hydration message from a strictly illustration-based tool containing the eight-point UC scale.
authors.affiliation: Hydration and Health Department, Danone Research, Palaiseau, France.
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Guelinckx
authors.forename: A S
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Frémont-Marquis
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Eon
authors.forename: S A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Kavouras
authors.forename: L E
authors.initials: LE
authors.lastname: Armstrong
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D003116:Color; D032882:Comprehension; D003258:Consumer Behavior; D054626:Consumer Health Information / Q000379:methods; D005602:France; D058015:Health Communication / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D007214:Indonesia; D008488:Medical Illustration; D008800:Mexico; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014556:Urine; D014882:Water-Electrolyte Balance