P-FITS: The Pediatric Food Intake Technology System

Diet plays an integral role in the physical, emotional, and general health of children and adolescents. The consequences of poor diet during this critical time period are long-lasting, with nutritional status being a strong risk factor of chronic diseases throughout adulthood. Current dietary assessment tools available for self- administration in older children are extremely limited, particularly among U.S. populations. Across clinical, research, and community settings, there is an increasing demand for specifically designed instruments that can accurately, reliably, and efficiently assess usual dietary intakes of children and adolescents. Technological advancements allow for commonly used dietary assessment tools to be automated, visually-appealing, and web-based for easy administration by computer, tablet, or smartphone. They are also capable of providing quick analyses of dietary intakes, incorporating comparisons of nutrient/food group intakes to national recommendations, dietary quality measures, and other health-related scores, such as food processing level. The proposed project will address the outstanding need for a technologically advanced dietary assessment tool specific to the U.S. pediatric population by creating the Pediatric Food Intake System (P-FITS). P-FITS will integrate Viocare’s VioScreen technology with targeted nutrient and/or food group 24-hour recalls to estimate usual dietary intakes in U.S. children ages 8-14 years. Phase I will develop a prototype of P-FITS to test feasibility for diet assessment self-administration within the pediatric population, followed by validation in Phase II.Although there are several methods to assess dietary intakes in adults and older adolescents, current dietary assessment tools available for self-administration in children are limited and rely mostly on caregiver report for children younger than 14 years. The proposed project will address the outstanding need for a technologically advanced dietary assessment tool specific to the U.S. pediatric population by creating the Pediatric Food Intake System (P-FITS). P-FITS will integrate Viocare’s VioScreen technology with targeted nutrient and/or food group 24-hour recalls to improve estimation of usual dietary intakes in U.S. children ages 8-14 years.