Validity and reproducibility of food frequency questionnaire in Japanese children aged 6 years

The aim of the present study was to evaluate the validity and reproducibility of a food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) for use among young Japanese children. Forty-seven mothers of children aged 6 y completed two 3-d diet records and two FFQs over a 6-mo period. The FFQ asked the mothers how often, on average, their children consumed each of the 162 food items listed and what the usual serving size of each item was during the 6 mo prior to the study. Intakes of macro- and micronutrients were estimated by multiplying the frequency by the serving size for each food item. The validity of the FFQ was assessed by comparison of the two 3-d diet records. The reproducibility of the FFQ was based on the first and second FFQ administrations. The validity correlation ranged from 0.05 for α-tocopherol to 0.59 for retinol. The median correlation was 0.40. The reproducibility correlation was higher than 0.50 for all nutrients. For most nutrients, FFQ had acceptable reproducibility, whereas validity showed low to moderate correlations. Our FFQ could reasonably rank individuals according to dietary intake for epidemiologic studies, although the validity of the questionnaire is limited to specific nutrients.