SELF-REPORTS OF DIET--CHILDREN'S COGNITIVE PROCESSING

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Dietary assessment will be used to determine achievement of the 5 a Day program goal for a minimum of five daily servings of fruits and vegetables (F&V) as well as the nation's Year 2000 Health Objectives which specify increasing F&V and fiber consumption and decreasing fat consumption for reducing the risk of cancer and other chronic diseases. Since many chronic diseases begin in childhood, improving the accuracy and reliability of dietary assessment, especially among children, is necessary for determining progress in reducing chronic disease risk. by taking the perspective of the child as a cognitive information processor when providing self-reports of diet, the proposed research will be the first to apply the theory and methodology of cognitive psychology to dietary assessment of children. Fourth graders have been targeted because they have the ability and desire to provide self-reports of diet. The specific goals of the proposed research are to develop a model of 4th grader's cognitive processing regarding attention to, perception, organization, and recall of diet within the past 24 hours, especially concerning F&V, fat, and fiber; and to develop and evaluate an improved self-report method of intake based on that model. Seven sequential studies will be conducted over 5 years with 4th grade children, balanced among white and black males and females, from 3 public schools in Augusta, GA. In Studies 1 through 4, we will focus on how foods are grouped for organization and storage in memory to identify appropriate cues for facilitating recall. Specifically, in Study 1, we will determine if food groups differ when pictures or names of foods are grouped. In Study 2, we will assess how many foods are required to establish stable food groupings. In Study 3, we will determine if the same groups are formed when different foods are used. In Study 4, we will assess how foods prepared to vary the amounts of fat and fiber are grouped. In Study 5, we will test what foods 4th graders attend to by comparing their reports of eating the school lunch within two hours to observation. In Study 6, we will determine the differences between what foods 4th graders attend to and retain about eating by comparing their reports of the school lunch within two hours and the following morning to observation. In Study 7, we will test the accuracy of 4th graders' self-reports of the school lunch by comparing results from a cognitive procedure developed based on the outcomes of Studies 1 to 6 and results from a standard recall procedure within two hours of eating and the following morning to observation. The proposed research will increase our understanding of how children self-report diet, and thus lead to improved methods of dietary assessment among children.