A simple fruit and vegetable score is a valid tool to assess actual fruit and vegetable intake

Giulia Pastori*, Inge D. Brouwer, Edith J.M. Feskens, Le Thi Huong, Folake O. Samuel, Xuan Thi Thanh Le, Oluyemisi F. Shittu, Toluwalope E. Eyinla, Elise F. Talsma

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

3 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

With the recent growing interest in improving fruit and vegetable intake for better health and limited research resources in many settings, simple-To-Administer and low-priced indicators are essential tools for monitoring fruit and vegetable intake at the population level. A potential candidate indicator is the fruit and vegetable component of the Global Dietary Recommendations score (FV-GDR) based on data collected using the Diet Quality Questionnaire (DQQ). We investigated the relative validity of FV-GDR collected with the DQQ to measure fruit and vegetable intake by comparison with a 24-hour recall (24hR) as a reference collected from 620 Vietnamese and 630 Nigerian adults in 2021. We found proportional differences in the prevalence of intake of vitamin A-rich vegetables, other vegetables, and other fruits in Vietnam, and all vegetable food groups in Nigeria. In both countries, we found a small difference in the total FV-GDR from DQQ compared to the 24hR, and the percentage of agreement between the two methods was quite high for the majority of the food groups. The FV-GDR calculated from the DQQ correlated with the actual intake, although less strongly than the FV-GDR from 24hR. The DQQ is a promising low-burden, low cost and simple tool to calculate FV-GDR and to monitor fruit and vegetable consumption at the population level. This provides the possibility of evaluating an important aspect of diet quality in low-resource settings.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1942-1949
JournalBritish Journal of Nutrition
Volume130
Issue number11
Early online date5 May 2023
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 14 Dec 2023

Keywords

  • consumption
  • diet quality
  • dietary assessment
  • food groups
  • FV-GDR
  • indicator
  • validation

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'A simple fruit and vegetable score is a valid tool to assess actual fruit and vegetable intake'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this