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Biomedical subjects

S B Domel

Publications and source records attributed to S B Domel.

10 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1997

Self-reports of diet: how children remember what they have eaten.

Determining how children remember what they have eaten may guide the development of specific cues that help children report their diets more accurately. This research used a cognitive-processing approach to examine fourth graders' self-reports of diet. School lunches were observed to determine what was really eaten and the results of these observations were compared with students' reports of what they had eaten and how they remembered that information. Interviews with individual students conducted within 1.5 h of lunch or the following morning included free and prompted report, although prompting was limited to clarifying details about the items and amounts already reported. For analyses, retrieval responses (what the students said in response to the question "how do you remember you ate--?") were categorized. A single measure of accuracy that reflected omissions and intrusions was calculated by comparing the student's report with the observation record. Results from one study are provided, along with preliminary results from two additional studies. Research questions and future plans are highlighted, including a Delphi technique study to develop a consensus set of categories of retrieval responses. More accurate assessment of children's diets could increase awareness of changes needed to help establish healthful eating habits in childhood to decrease the risk of chronic diseases in adulthood.

Child↗
PubMed1996

A measure of stages of change in fruit and vegetable consumption among fourth- and fifth-grade school children: reliability and validity.

OBJECTIVE: We developed, pilot-tested, and field-applied a stages of change questionnaire regarding fruit and vegetable (F&V) consumption among fourth- and fifth-grade students. METHODS: The design included cross-sectional assessment of internal consistency and construct validity, and 2-week and 7-week longitudinal assessment of test-retest reliability. Subjects included 134 students from one school for pilot-testing and 252 from two schools for field application. Thirty-two questions from McConnaughy et al's stages of change questionnaire were adapted and pilot-tested; minor revisions were made for field application. Statistical analyses included principal components analysis to identify subscales; cluster analysis to identify subgroups within students; Cronbach's alpha coefficient to assess internal consistencies; Pearson product-moment correlations to assess test-retest reliabilities; and oneway ANOVA's by F&V stages of change clusters with actual F&V consumption, F&V self-efficacy subscales, F&V preferences, and F&V outcome expectations subscales to determine construct validity. RESULTS: Principal components analysis from the field application indicated two subscales (precontemplation and beyond precontemplation) accounting for 39.5% of variance. Cluster analysis indicated 6 interpretable clusters; 2 (n = 63) provided responses inconsistent with the stages of change theory and 4 (n = 189) provided responses consistent with the theory. Internal consistencies and test-retest reliabilities were acceptable. Students in the "beyond precontemplation" clusters had higher levels of self-efficacy and outcome expectations regarding eating F&V. CONCLUSIONS: Measuring stages of change other than the precontemplation stage in F&V consumption among elementary school children is problematic. Perhaps the theoretical concept does not apply to children, or elementary school children lack the ability to comprehend the questions measuring the concept, or the approach used was not entirely appropriate.

Attitude to Health↗
PubMed1994

How children remember what they have eaten.

OBJECTIVES: To determine whether students could verbalize, within 1 1/2 hours, how they remembered items eaten at the school lunch; to determine whether the categories of self-reported retrieval mechanisms were similar for two interview styles, integrated and nonintegrated; and to determine the effect of the two interview style on the accuracy of reporting items eaten by comparing reports with direct observation. DESIGN: Two styles of dietary intake interviews were compared with observed intake in a school lunch setting. SETTING: Two elementary schools in Georgia. SUBJECTS/SAMPLES: Eighty-two of 106 fourth graders from four classes volunteered; 24 (six per class) were randomly selected and assigned to an interview style. Students interviewed using a nonintegrated style verbalized how they remembered after they had reported everything eaten. Students interviewed using an integrated style verbalized how they remembered at the same time they reported eating each item. Both interview styles included free report followed by prompted report. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Reported retrieval mechanisms were coded into 13 categories. Five measures of performance (specific match rate, general match rate, intrusion rate, omission rate, and overall match rate) were calculated by interview style for free report and prompted report separately. STATISTICAL ANALYSES PERFORMED: We analyzed the effect of interview style on the number of students reaching 100% accuracy after prompting and on accuracy of reporting condiments using Fisher's exact test. RESULTS: Most students could articulate how they remembered items eaten. Reported retrieval mechanism categories were comparable for both interview styles. Visual imagery, usual practice, behavior chaining, and preference were the most commonly reported retrieval mechanisms. Accuracy of free reports did not differ by interview style; however, the nonintegrated interview style produced dietary self-reports with fewer condiment omissions during free report and higher accuracy after prompting. APPLICATIONS: Determining what retrieval mechanisms children commonly use for remembering items eaten may help researchers design cues to improve the accuracy of dietary self-reports. More accurate dietary self-reports could markedly affect the many types of research that use dietary assessment.

Child↗
PubMed1994

Fruit and vegetable food frequencies by fourth and fifth grade students: validity and reliability.

OBJECTIVE: Due to the increased emphasis on fruit and vegetable (F+V) consumption and a desire to use the simplest dietary assessment method appropriate to determine F+V intake, we assessed the reliability and validity of weekly and monthly fruit and vegetable food frequency questionnaires (F+V FFQ) among fourth and fifth grade students by comparing them to food records previously validated through school lunch observations. METHODS: The multiethnic sample (primarily African-American and Caucasian) included predominantly lower-middle socioeconomic students from 10 classes at one elementary school. F+V FFQ were printed on optical scanning forms and classroom administered on two occasions. Students completed preprinted food record forms at school and received new forms weekly. To allow comparison between the F+V FFQ and food records, a dietitian abstracted information from the records according to a written protocol and transferred it to F+V FFQ forms covering respective time periods. F+V FFQ were converted to estimated daily servings and aggregated to create five F+V indices plus three summary indices. Statistical analyses included Spearman correlations and paired t-tests. RESULTS: Students demonstrated acceptable reliability in completing food records as well as weekly and monthly F+V FFQ; however, validity was unacceptable for both F+V FFQ versions due to significant overreporting. CONCLUSION: Of the two methods studied, the food record procedure is preferred over the FFQ procedure for collecting self-reported F+V consumption data among fourth and fifth grade students.

Child↗
PubMed1994

A cognitive model of children's reporting of food intake.

A model of cognitive processing is proposed to understand children's self-reports of diet. The model is a simplification of what is known about cognitive processing and includes three structural components: sensory register, short-term memory, and long-term memory. Several processes describe functioning of the model, including attention, perception (or interpretation), organization, retention, retrieval, and response formulation. The ideas explain several phenomena in the literature on children's self-reports of dietary intake. Research questions are identified for each process to help specify the model and lead to improved methods for dietary assessment in children.

Child↗
PubMed1994

Accuracy of fourth- and fifth-grade students' food records compared with school-lunch observations.

Fourth- and fifth-grade students' food records completed by using a labor-intensive approach (with daily monitoring) or a less labor-intensive approach (with weekly monitoring) were compared with school-lunch observations. Records were completed at three elementary schools for 14-23 d by students in 26 classes. Record pages were printed forms with areas for recording items consumed, number of servings, and locations of meals. Students were randomly selected for lunch observation. Kappa coefficients and percent of agreement for interobserver reliability for both approaches combined ranged from 0.43 to 0.91 and 72.6% to 95.5%, respectively, on 24 observations. Pearson correlations for 117 record/observation matches were significant for eight and three of nine meal items for the daily and weekly monitoring approaches, respectively. Thus, students were reasonably accurate in keeping records and more accurate with the more labor-intensive approach. Researchers need to select an approach based on the degree of accuracy desired and available finances.

Child↗
PubMed1993

Measuring fruit and vegetable preferences among 4th- and 5th-grade students.

BACKGROUND: Achievement of the nation's Year 2000 fruit and vegetable goal of five or more daily servings may relate to children's preferences for fruits and vegetables. There are, however, no easily administered instruments for measuring preferences for fruits and vegetables among children. METHODS: An initial questionnaire systematically varied preparation methods after focus group discussions had indicated that this had an impact on fruit and vegetable preferences. The three-part questionnaire (fruits, vegetables, fruit and/or vegetable snacks) was classroom administered. Internal consistencies and test-retest reliabilities were acceptable. Principal components analyses, however, revealed food-specific rather than preparation factors; thus, preparation was eliminated from a revised questionnaire. RESULTS: Repeat classroom administration of the revised questionnaire yielded acceptable internal consistencies and test-retest reliabilities. Preferences were higher for fruits than vegetables. Principal components analyses indicated single fruit and vegetable factors and a two-factor solution for snacks (vegetables, fruits). Pearson correlations between preferences and consumption were significant, but accounted for only a small fraction of the variance. Correlations between fruit exposure and preferences, and between vegetable exposure and preferences were 0.55 and 0.51, respectively. CONCLUSION: The revised questionnaire provides a reliable, valid, and simple tool for assessing fruit and vegetable preferences of 4th- and 5th-grade students. The relationship between these preferences and actual consumption is weak; however, making fruits and vegetables more available may enhance preferences.

Child↗
PubMed1993

Defining the year 2000 fruit and vegetable goal.

Various nutrition guidelines recommend increased consumption of fruits and vegetables (F+V); a Year 2000 goal targets five or more daily servings of F+V. Decisions are needed regarding how to define F+V to facilitate measurement of goal achievement. Four alternative definitions (narrow and broad, each with and without legumes) were developed and applied to food frequencies from 133 children and 211 parents. Results varied by definition. Mean intake met the goal of five or more daily servings regardless of definition and exceeded it for both broad definitions by children and both broad definitions and the narrow definition with legumes for adults. Median intakes met the goal for all definitions except for children with the narrow definition without legumes, and exceeded it for children with both broad definitions and for adults with the broad definition with legumes. These differences by definition indicate that a clear definition of F+V is needed.

Adult↗