Evaluating the Concurrent Validity of a Web-Based Nutrition Screening Survey Among Preadolescent Student Athletes

Adequate nutritional intake supports preadolescents’ physiological development from childhood to adulthood. Food frequency questionnaires (FFQ), facilitate the evaluation of children’s food intake; however traditional FFQs are lengthy which may, in part, limit accurate reporting of food intake. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis is to evaluate the concurrent validity of the novel 47-item Nutrition Screening Survey (NSS) against the validated 127-item 2014 Block Food Frequency Questionnaire (FFQ), specifically for the estimation of dietary energy (kcal/day), carbohydrate (g/day), protein (g/day), fat (g/day), and fiber (g/day) among physically active preadolescent students. Participants (n=42) completed the online NSS during a school assembly. Three weeks later participants completed the online FFQ independently. Students also underwent anthropometric measurements on campus. Pearson’s correlations, paired samples t-tests, and a Bland-Altman Plot assessed the concurrent validity of the two surveys. Pearson’s correlation presented significant moderate associations between surveys for energy (kcal/day) (r= .58; p<.001), protein (g/day) (r= .58; p< .001), and dietary fat (g/day), (r= .58; p< .001) and weak correlations for carbohydrate (g/day) (r= .48; p< .001) and fiber (g/day) (r= .49; p< .001). The paired samples t-test showed dietary fat mean values did not significantly differ between the NSS and FFQ (63.79 g ± SD vs. 66.89 g ± SD, p= 0.47) and the Bland-Altman Plot indicated no proportional bias. These finding support the limited validity of the novel NSS for this sample and that it may serve as a convenient method of evaluating nutritional risks among preadolescents