Diet quality of Montreal-area adults needs improvement: estimates from a self-administered food frequency questionnaire furnishing a dietary indicator score.

Objective/design: Time and budget constraints limit nutrition evaluation in Canadian health surveys. To encourage regular population diet monitoring in Canada, we developed and assessed the relative validity of a population-based food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) to assess usual diet in Quebecers. A 73-item, self-administered semiquantitative FFQ was designed in French and English from the Block National Cancer Institute Health Habits and History Questionnaire to capture usual food consumption among Quebec adults.

Development and validation of a food frequency questionnaire.

Regular diet monitoring requires a tool validated in the target population. A 73-item, semiquantitative, self-administered food frequency questionnaire (FFQ), was adapted in French and English from the Block National Cancer Institute Health Habits and History Questionnaire. The FFQ was used to capture usual long-term food consumption among adults living in Quebec.

Underreporting of energy intake from a self-administered food-frequency questionnaire completed by adults in Montreal.

Background: Energy intake determined from self-reported dietary assessment methods may be underreported. Therefore, it is important that such methods be validated against another with known validity for energy intake or energy expenditure.

Methods: We investigated potential underestimation of energy intake obtained from our semi-quantitative food-frequency questionnaire (FFQ) administered between 2000 and 2001 in the metropolitan area of Montreal, Canada.

Diet quality among older Quebecers as assessed by simple indicators.

To determine whether older Quebecers are eating adequately and whether summary scores represent diet quality, a representative subset of participants aged 55 to 74 (weighted n=460, 47% male) was studied from the 1990 Enquête québécoise sur la nutrition dataset. Participants' diet quality was scored from adjusted 24-hour recalls. Foods were coded into Canada's Food Guide to Healthy Eating food groups.

An approach for evaluating lifelong intakes of functional foods in elderly people.

Many "functional foods" (FF), common foods with health benefits beyond their nutritive value, have antioxidant properties with the potential to mediate the degenerative changes of aging. A pilot study was conducted among 51 healthy, home-dwelling elderly people aged 70-86 y (51% male) to develop a method for evaluating relationships between lifelong diet and health. A population-based semiquantitative food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) was used to assess the usual diet.

Contaminant exposure among women of childbearing age who eat St. Lawrence River sport fish.

Little information is available concerning the level of consumption and degree of contaminant exposure for North American women of childbearing age who eat sport fish. The authors reanalyzed a 1995-1996 study of Montreal-area (Canada) sport fishers. The authors focused on women sport fishers of childbearing age and male sport fishers who had spouses of childbearing age.