Food Behavior Checklist (ES)

Kristal, A. R., Abrams, B. F., Thornquist, M. D., Disogra, L., Croyle, R. T., Shattuck, A. L., et al. (1990). Development and validation of a food use checklist for evaluation of community nutrition interventions. American Journal of Public Health, 80(11), 1318-1322.

 

                Authors suggest that the standard tools that are used in community dietetics to gather information are insufficient. They talk about 24-hour recalls being too time consuming and needing professionally trained interviewers and that multiple-day diet records and food frequency questionnaires are too expensive and difficult to use. They instead suggest a Food Behavior Checklist (FBC). A FBC is similar to a 24-hour recall but instead is a yes/no survey that can be administered quickly by almost anyone.

                When compared to 24-recalls the FBC resulted in similar answers. Authors noted that some questions on the FBC were not specific enough, such as “Did you eat a vegetable at lunch?” These questions should be modified to ask about certain vegetables or kinds of vegetables because the generalization may elicit telescoping, which is recalling past events as more recent in time.

                Overall researchers discovered that with fine tuning for what information is being sought, FBCs gather the same information as 24-hour recalls with less time and less training for interviewers.

                I think it’s important to try new things to improve upon already established methods, such as improving upon 24-hour recalls or food questionnaires. It gives dietitians an opportunity to improve the quality of information that is being gathered.

Ellsworth