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The HELENA online food frequency questionnaire: reproducibility and comparison with four 24-h recalls in Belgian–Flemish adolescents

European Journal of Clinical Nutrition volume 64, pages 541–548 (2010)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Objectives:

To investigate the reproducibility of the HELENA Food Frequency Questionnaire (FFQ) developed as a basis for an online tailored intervention and to compare the FFQ with four computerized 24-h recalls.

Subjects/methods:

A convenience sample of 48 Belgian–Flemish adolescents completed four computerized 24-h recalls, the FFQ and a retest 1–2 weeks later. Correlations, the Wilcoxon's signed rank test and Bland and Altman's plots were used to compare the intakes of 22 food groups, energy (kcal), fibre (g, g/1000 kcal), vitamin C (mg, mg/1000 kcal), calcium (mg, mg/1000 kcal), iron (mg, mg/1000 kcal) and fat (g, % from total energy).

Results:

Reproducibility correlations were good (0.46–0.90). De-attenuated correlations between both methods were high (⩾0.51) for all nutrients and nutrient densities, except for fibre (g), vitamin C (mg) and percent energy from fat (respectively 0.23, 0.40 and 0.30). On a food group level correlations were significant (runadjusted>0.3) for most (17/22) food groups. No systematic differences were found between test and retest; comparison with the recalls resulted in a significantly higher intake of bread, breakfast cereals, other snacks, vegetables, potatoes, coffee and tea, alcoholic beverages, energy, and most nutrients. No significant difference was found for calcium, whereas an underestimation was found for nutrient density of calcium and fat.

Conclusions:

The overestimation in seven food groups, resulting in an overestimation of energy, fibre, iron and vitamin C, and underestimation of percentage energy from fat, needs to be considered when the estimated intakes are used for tailored feedback.

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Acknowledgements

Carine Vereecken is a postdoctoral researcher funded by the Research Foundation-Flanders (FWO-Vlaanderen). The HELENA Study took place with the financial support of the European Community Sixth RTD Framework Programme (Contract FOOD-CT-2005–007034). Luis Moreno is coordinator of the HELENA study. For a complete list of the HELENA research team visit: http://www.helenastudy.com/list.php. The content of this article reflects only the authors’ views and the European Community is not liable for any use that may be made of the information contained therein. Finally we thank the adolescents who participated in our study, the students of the Social Medical Sciences for collecting the data, and Liselotte Van Vlem for grammar and spelling corrections.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Foundation—Flanders (FWO-Vlaanderen), Brussels, Belgium,

    C A Vereecken

  2. Department of Public Health, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

    C A Vereecken & L Maes

  3. Department of Movement and Sport Sciences, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

    I De Bourdeaudhuij

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  1. C A Vereecken
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  2. I De Bourdeaudhuij
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  3. L Maes
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on behalf of the HELENA study group

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Correspondence to C A Vereecken.

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The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Contributors: CV, IDB and LM designed the study. CV coordinated the fieldwork, analysed the data and wrote the paper. LM and IDB reviewed the manuscript.

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Vereecken, C., De Bourdeaudhuij, I., Maes, L. et al. The HELENA online food frequency questionnaire: reproducibility and comparison with four 24-h recalls in Belgian–Flemish adolescents. Eur J Clin Nutr 64, 541–548 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/ejcn.2010.24

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