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Estimation of portion size in children's dietary assessment: lessons learnt

European Journal of Clinical Nutrition volume 63, pages S45–S49 (2009)Cite this article

Abstract

Background/Objectives:

Assessing the dietary intake of young children is challenging. In any 1 day, children may have several carers responsible for providing them with their dietary requirements, and once children reach school age, traditional methods such as weighing all items consumed become impractical. As an alternative to weighed records, food portion size assessment tools are available to assist subjects in estimating the amounts of foods consumed. Existing food photographs designed for use with adults and based on adult portion sizes have been found to be inappropriate for use with children. This article presents a review and summary of a body of work carried out to improve the estimation of portion sizes consumed by children.

Methods:

Feasibility work was undertaken to determine the accuracy and precision of three portion size assessment tools; food photographs, food models and a computer-based Interactive Portion Size Assessment System (IPSAS). These tools were based on portion sizes served to children during the National Diet and Nutrition Survey. As children often do not consume all of the food served to them, smaller portions were included in each tool for estimation of leftovers. The tools covered 22 foods, which children commonly consume. Children were served known amounts of each food and leftovers were recorded. They were then asked to estimate both the amount of food that they were served and the amount of any food leftover.

Results:

Children were found to estimate food portion size with an accuracy approaching that of adults using both the food photographs and IPSAS.

Conclusions:

Further development is underway to increase the number of food photographs and to develop IPSAS to cover a much wider range of foods and to validate the use of these tools in a ‘real life’ setting.

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Acknowledgements

The work to develop the age-appropriate portion size assessment tools for use in children was funded by the Food Standards Agency (project number N08019). The work on adult estimates of portion size was funded by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, many thanks to Dr Michael Nelson for allowing us to use this data. Further development of the IPSAS and Food Photographs was funded by the Food Standards Agency (project number N08027). Drs Foster and Adamson are funded by NIHR (National Institute for Health Research) Personal Awards. The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NHS, NIHR or Department of Health.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Human Nutrition Research Centre, Institute of Health and Society, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

    E Foster & A J Adamson

  2. Centre for Public Health Nutrition Research, University of Dundee, Dundee, UK

    A S Anderson & K L Barton

  3. Health Services Research Unit, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK

    W L Wrieden

Authors
  1. E Foster
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  2. A J Adamson
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  3. A S Anderson
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  4. K L Barton
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  5. W L Wrieden
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to E Foster.

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Disclosure

AS Anderson has received grant support from Glaxo Smith Kline. The remaining authors have declared no financial interests.

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Foster, E., Adamson, A., Anderson, A. et al. Estimation of portion size in children's dietary assessment: lessons learnt. Eur J Clin Nutr 63 (Suppl 1), S45–S49 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/ejcn.2008.64

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