Nutritional status of black preschool children in Mississippi. Assessment by food frequency scale.

Food frequency data were studied in relation to the nutritional status of 372 black preschool children in three Mississippi counties. The following data were utilized: quantitative dietary intakes for four or seven days, from which intakes of eight nutrients and energy were calculated and frequency of consumption of all individual foods was obtained; and anthropometric (height) and biochemical (hemoglobin) meausres. Six Guttman scales of food consumption frequencies were constructed: in four scales, all foods consumed in four or seven days were assigned to one of nine food groups which formed scale steps; two scales represented foods from single food groups--breads and milk and milk products. The wide range of individual consumption frequencies required special handling of the data, using a method devised by TenHouten in his work on scale gradient analysis. Kendall's tau correlation coefficients were calculated for relationships between all scales and commonly used indicators of nutritional status, including calculated intakes of eight nutrients and energy, height percentiles, and hemoglobin values. Two total food consumption scales based on seven-day dietary intakes were valid indicators of nutritional status, i.e., the scales were significantly correlated with all three indicators of nutritional status. The milk scale was significantly correlated woth two total food consumption scales, height percentiles, and nine calculated intakes; this finding suggests that a milk scale warrants further investigation. This research focused on relationships between the food scales and nutritional status indicators as an initial step in a study of overall family development. According to the family development model, the food scales and scales dealing with other areas of home and family life are all measuring the capacity of the family to process information. The food scale alone, which has meaning for both the nutritionist and the sociologist, has implications for nutrition education in determining what to teach, selecting teachers, and evaluating change in food practices.