This is a difficult age to collect intake data from because there are usually two or more caretakers involved in feeding, parent at home and day care worker during day. Most studies I have seen use food records from these two sources with mixed success. You might glean some information from the following reference, however it refers to recalls that cannot be used with children under 8 to 10 years of age. "Cognitive processes in children’s dietary recalls: Insight from methodological studies Suzanne Domel Baxter, PhD, RD, LD, FADA Eur J Clin Nutr. 2009 February ; 63(Suppl 1): S19–S32."

I think indeed that using food records that can be completed by different caretakers (parents and day care) is a good option. Good luck

I think that foods records completed by both caregivers will give give some substantial information .thoigh you could consider follow ups in individual homes 1-2 days

It really depends on your specific intention/objective.

If you want to examine quantity the methods may be different from quality and dietary diversity.

The last one is easier especially for children. Just asking the types of food they took in the past one day (from their caregivers) will make the good indicator of dietary diversity. This (individual dietary diversity score IDDS) is commonly used to know briefly the types/diversity of diet., the median score may be used as a cutoff point.

For the quality and quantity, you need to understand the context of the place you are going to conduct the study. Again it all depends on your intention. You may check the local food types and their contents (ingredients) to understand what the food is made of, and to estimate the amount you need to do further measurements. In some countries, there are food tables that shows the content of calories, protein or else for each available type of food. In that way you may be able to establish the quality and quantity at the same time.

Good luck

Thanks everybody for your replies, what i am really trying to do is trying to evaluate the types of food that preschooler tend to consume. I also think that completing food records by the care givers beside the parents is a good idea!

I asked the children to have photos taken and diet records with the help of caregivers before. It is more reliable,

Here is a paper that might help you. It deals with the relationships between caretaker and child during 24h recall interviews: Caretaker-child interaction during children's 24-hour dietary recalls: who contributes what to the recall record? (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10767898)

And another more specific about micronutrient, but it could also help you: Dietary assessment methods for micronutrient intake in infants, children and adolescents a systematic review (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20100370)

Thanks, that was helpful

You can have a look at the MRC resources, they are extremely useful, partcularly the one of the CADET questionnaire, we have used them to investigate intake of nursery age children and it is filled either by parents/carers of nursery children.

http://dapa-toolkit.mrc.ac.uk/dietary-assessment/methods/dietary-checklist/index.html

Thanks for your responds

If you need to track food records for pre-schoolers, you require a database with recipes, menus, costs and nutrition for individual records. See www.jamix.com.au as we have done this in Australia for child care.

Dr.K.Kanjana Ph.D, PSGCAS

Refer 'Text Book of Human Nutrition' by Bamji M.S , Oxford and TBH publishing Co.pvt. Ltd., New Delhi for assessment of dietary survey and can construct your own questionnaire

If you haven't already, you really need to investigate the FITS methodology - assesses dietary intake using a 24 hour recall completed by the caregiver over the phone. My advisor's research group has completed a dietary intake analysis of low income infants and toddlers using questionnaires based on the FITS methodology. The authors were very helpful.

Food Frequency Questionnaires are a popular choice. Try to use ones that include the assessment of Sodium intake as it is directly affiliated with increased prevalence of Hypertension among Children and adolescents.

i have a lot of experience with pre-school children and find the best way is to use a 24 hr recall with the parents, however if the children are in childcare you need to as the child care institution to make a note of food intake too. we have found though in validation studies that parents to tend to over estimate the food and we think this may be due to the portion sizes you use to calculate dietary intake. You ned to be carefu to use age appropriate portion sizes for your sample.