Question 1
The authors cited one of the limitations to this study being recall bias of the parents/guardians on eating behaviors and physical activity. How do you think the authors could have collected this data without involving the participants’ parents?
posted by SarahU @ 4:42 PM
32 comments
32 Comments:
I think that at this age, kids are old enough to learn to track their own diet and activity, especially if they can do so in a fun way. Online tracking on a site similar to MyPyramid.gov or on a phone app that is interactive would be a great way to encourage compliance. However, this would add to screen time. If approved, recruiting schools or community centers to get involved could help increase compliance.
I believe the only other option than using parents for a young population, would be obtaining this information from the participants’ school teachers. The participants’ schools would have to be involved and eating patterns during school lunches could be used in the data collection as well. Other than this option, I cannot think of a better way to collect data for a young age group than utilizing the participants’ parents/guardians.
Although this article did state that there was a bias in parents reporting, I think it is the best way to collect. Who else pays as close attention to their children's intake and activity other than than the parents themselves? I do agree with Sarah in saying these kids are old enough to keep track of their daily activity and diet but will they do it without a reminder or possibly help from their parents? I guess the most inexpensive way to collect the data without parents would be the kids themselves reporting because school personal will not have any information on the child before or after school hours.
I don’t really think there is a better way to assess the intake and physical activity of this age group. I think the parents/guardians are necessary for the assessment. I believe keeping a food diary or completing a food record would be too daunting for these participants and their parents/guardians. The food frequency allows them to reflect on the overall intake. I believe it is much easier for people to identify foods they eat most often instead of specific meals.
It is understandable that parents/guardians may not be able to entirely recall exactly what their child ate, the amount, how much physical activity etc. Parents are not able to be with their children 24/7 due to work responsibilities, cooking/cleaning/chores, and children are in school for the majority of the day. Having the children keep a diary of the kinds of food they ate may be asking too much of this age group, but it is one approach. Liz makes a good point about having the teachers in their schools track their food intake and physical activity level. Sarah G. also had a good suggestion for having the children track their diet by using MyPyramid.gov. The website is very user friendly once you know where to go.
I agree that children at this age are aware of the foods they are eating but I am doubtful that they would be aware of serving sizes, frequency they eat certain foods etc. I am not sure you would get a more accurate report. I would utilize the schools more, a lot of schools have ID's that are used in the cafeteria and it may be easy to see what a specific child commonly chose within a certain time period.
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I also like Sarah G's idea to utilize MyPyramid, I do think it may be a little difficult for children to use only because they would have to be very proactive to utilize the site and report their diets on their own. Maybe this could be part of a class project to learn about the program and sign in everyday?
I agree with Michela that children this age would have a difficult time recalling the serving sizes and frequency of the foods they consume. Other than using parents, utilizing schools would be the next best option. Sarah made a good point about MyPyramid. If the students were able to do this at school with the assistance of a teacher it might be possible.
Rather than remove the parents from the study, I think it would be very interesting to compare the parents recall to that of their own children. If the researchers had both the parents and the children fill out the questionnaires then it would be a great way to see the parents perceptions of their childrens activity and eating habits.
Because the studying is using children, I do believe that the food frequency questionnaire is the best choice because food journals are complicated and 24-hour recalls rely on an individual’s memory. Though it may be difficult, possibly by placing this study in a school setting (with parental consent), it would more likely avoid the biased influence of parents. Therefore the parents would not be present and a child could then answer the frequency questionnaire on his or her own.
I think Bethany has a good idea. Comparing the parent's/guardian's report against the children's report of intake could be beneficial in determining if children of this age are able to accurately recall their intakes. These results could then be used in future studies that involve analyzing this age group's intake to improve the accuracy of results.
I think that comparing the students' own diet recalls to that of their parents' would be the most effective and accurate means of obtaining this information. If a trained professional was conducting each recall, they would most likely be able to identify any discrepancies between the two, ask the necessary questions to resolve them, and obtain the most accurate version.
Parents/guardians may over- or underestimate a child's intake but I imagine that most studies that rely on diet recall data will have a similar bias. Would that bias be even greater if it was only the child reporting intake and behavior? In agreement with Meredith and previous posts, I think comparing data from the child and the parent would be an effective way to improve results and decrease bias.
There's another article in this month's journal that deals with dietary patterns among adolescents and the researchers utilized the schools to collect data. They sent trained staff into the schools and had students complete in-class surveys. I think this could have been an alternative option for the PANACEA study if they wanted to remove parental bias.
This is a difficult bias to avoid. Even by eliminating parents/guardians as a source of recall information and simply asked children to track their own food intake, screen time, and asthma symptoms, we could still get recall bias from the kids - many children about that age are cognizant about what "healthy" is supposed to look like.
Liz, I like your idea of using educators to help track dietary intake during school hours. However, screen time and asthmatic symptoms before and after school hours can't very well be recorded by teachers; in this case, I like Meredith and Kathy's idea of collecting data from both children and parents and comparing the data to help determine accuracy.
1. The only way I can think of elimination parental/guardian bias in this study is to ask the students themselves about their food intake and physical activity. Maybe to help demonstrate serving sizes etc. the interviewers could use pictures and models. I’m not sure there is a great way to determine the length of time a child is active. You could possibly compare an hour to say the length of a TV episode or have the student compare the amount of time they play at home to the length of time their recess is etc. Also it would be beneficial to see how long the school’s gym class and recesses are in order to factor in the activity level and time of the student.
Sarah-
I think using MyPyramid.gov is a great tool. It would be beneficial to have someone come in and teach the students how to use it first. Kids these days are usually pretty good at using and understanding computers etc. Education on serving sizes and demonstrations will also be useful.
I agree with Bethany (and many of you others) on comparing the parents and children's recalls. it would be interesting to see those results.
I agree that the parents of the participants in the study would be the most accurate source of diet information. I feel that 10-12 year olds would be able to record their lunches they had in the school setting, but portion sizes may be recorded inaccurately. This would require a lot of work on the school's end if the participants themselves were in charge of recording their own intake and physical activity.
I feel that this was the most efficient and reliable mathod. Every research study is going to have a certain level of bias. I believe that the parents would be a better judge of the amount of time an activity took place like time spent watching tv or a serving size of a salty food.
I agree with Liz J the population is a little to young to be responsible for all the data. She does mention the school teachers which I haven't thought of. The school staff could be a valuable resource when dealing this this age group.
Even though the authors believe that bias may play a part in parent reporting I believe that this is the best way to collect the data. The kids are old enough to report what they are eating but I am not sure if they would be able to recall amounts and they might be more likely to leave off unhealthy foods they consumed. If the children were to do the reporting they would need to have education on how to keep a food record and portion sizes.
-Jordan
I agree with Liz that the data could be collected at school. Instead of having the teachers report the data though the students could report on their activity and eating habits during the school day. The teacher would be there to help the students judge portion sizes and help them recall what they had done.
I believe that appropriately tracking the childrens' diet without the assistance of the parents would be near impossible. Yes they are at an age that they should be taking on greater responsibility in thier lives however I do not think that a child would see a large value in keeping a highly accurate log of their intake. However, if possible, I believe that having the children immediatly enter their intake into a computer program post eating (possibly via hand-held electronic device) may be the most possible way to gain a close approximation of their intake with minimal parental involvement.
I think the authors used the best method to collect data. I think it could be innapropriate to have 10-12 YO kids complete the questionnaires used to measure data in this study. If they wanted to collect data in another way, they would have to change there statistcal analysis significantly or be present to help the kids complete the questionnares.
I think the only way to collect this information without involving the parents would be to directly ask the children about their diet and physical activity. However, I don’t know if this would be more accurate than the parents’ accounts. Children might not feel ashamed of what they ate or may not be as biased, but they might not be able to recall everything they consumed. I believe that the parents would be the best way to collect this type of information.
Sarah, I like your idea of having kids track their diet online to make it more fun and to help them learn how to track their diet and activity. It would add more screen time, but for a positive reason. I also think that getting the schools involved might work, especially if the children eat breakfast and lunch there. They could facilitate tracking their meals right after having them at the schools.
I think that we all agree that some degree of bias will occur regardless of whom we are asking to recall a diet. However, relying on information from someone this young, comes with it's own set of bias. I still conclude that the most accuracy would occur if both the parents' and kids' recalls were compared.
I don't think there is a better way to collect the data other than from the parents/guardians. The kids are possibly old enough to do this themselves but I feel like they would need to be reminded by someone on a daily basis. I'm not sure who/what could serve as a reminder to them but I think they would certainly need help to remember to record what they have eaten, physical activity and their screen time without the help of their parents. Any other way just doesn't seem as efficient or effectivefor this study.
Bethany- I agree with your comment that the parents should still be included in the study with their recall as well as the child's. I think this would be intersting to compare. Although the parent may monitor what the child is writing to make sure the two recalls are consistent. This is a tough debate because I just don't think there is any way to completely remove the parents with children this age and have the results be as accurate.
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