Question #3 August 2014
Q3: What other factors could have altered the study's results?
Do you feel there are significant differences in fruit and vegetable
consumption among the participants? Think about demographics and access to fruits and vegetables.
posted by Haleyhhughes @ 1:34 PM
11 comments
11 Comments:
Since it's a self reported questionnaire, they could be inaccurately reporting their consumption. I think it's interesting that the Asian population had the highest number in serum carotenoid, but I'm not surprised. From my experience, Asians tend to make fruits and vegetables a large part of their meal, which could explain why their serum carotenoid levels are higher. Asian families expose their kids to a bigger variety of foods at a young age, which helps the child be more accepting later in life.
I would say hydration status may have been a factor of blood concentration of carotenoids. Tina shares an interesting perspective. Consumption can truly change over time and depends on access. You would want to make the test available to appropriate populations .
Like Tina said, with a self-reported questionnaire, there is always that risk that the information isn't 100% accurate, so that margin of error should always be taken into consideration--perhaps especially with a younger population.
Some participants may have just had "off" or "on" days too. I know when looking through food recalls and then discussing them with clients, there are always clients who say that those days weren't typical and that "usually I eat a lot more of that" "or a lot less of that", so maybe that throws off the usefulness of the results of a dietary recall as well. Some children ate more/less F/V then they normally would have on an "average" day.
Jessica brought up a good point about hydration status too as being dehydrated to any extent could possibly throw off those numbers.
Another factor could be the time of year and region where the participants lived. Depending on these factors, certain fruits and vegetables may not have been available or could have been really expensive.
Age, gender, ethnicity, and size seemed to impact the amount of fruit and vegetable consumption. Larger, older participants would be likely to eat more food as well as F/V than smaller, younger participants. There could also be a cultural impact, as some cultures tend to eat more F/V than others as Tina mentioned. Sometimes gender has an impact, as women in general tend to eat more vegetables than men.
There are so many factors that could have impacted the results! I think accessibility to fruits and vegetables is a big factor, as well the factors mentioned above like gender, age, and ethnicity like Tina mentioned. Also, being in school may have impacted their F&V consumption because their meal at school could be the only place they’re getting fruits or veggies, assuming they’re eating at school. I agree with Arthur that accuracy of their self-reported questionnaires is another huge factor that could have affected the results of the study.
Sammy brings up a fantastic point about whether or not the children were in school or not; or whether or not the children participated in their school's foodservice program.
For many children, the school lunch program is really their only source for F/V. So they may be getting 4-5 servings of F/V a day while in school, but only 1-2 other days. Alternatively, some children could hate the F/V served at school and only eat such foods at home for whatever reason. That could definitely throw off the results.
That is a really wide age range of kids, when you consider just how different 5 year olds are compare to 16/17 year olds. So that can definitely factor into the results. A 12 year gap isn't such a big deal when you're talking about older adults, but with kids it's significant. So there would certainly be differences in consumption among the different age groups.
The accuracy of reporting on the FFQ could definitely affect study results, too.
If children are in school, and whether they eat the lunch provided by the school foodservice program are factors mentioned by Sammy and Arthur. Along those same lines, is the lunch provided by the school foodservice program one that follows the guidelines for providing fruit and vegetable options? Some schools are dropping out of the NSLP because they don't want to or cannot afford to follow the new NSLP regulations. In addition, junior high or high school students may be consuming a la carte items in place of the meal options provided by the NSLP.
Factors that could have altered the study’s results are age, gender, ethnicity, parents’ income, and the availability and access to fruits and vegetables for the children. Perhaps some areas of the county where this study took place have more grocery stores and therefore more access to fruits and vegetables.
I think the wide age range of participants in this study could have affected the results. Also, the social acceptability of eating fruits and vegetables at different ages could be taken into account. Perhaps younger children are less likely to eat fruits and vegetables because they worry about fitting in more than older children that are more confident and are less influenced by others.
I agree with the previous comments about the school lunch program impacting fruit and vegetable intake. I think an interesting addition to this study would be to include whether the school participates in the National School Lunch Program. Also, assessing whether the participants eat school lunch or bring their lunch from home, and then seeing which groups’ carotenoid level is higher would be interesting.
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