National Dietary Survey of the children of Cyprus

Lingua Undefined

Published on: Wed, 01 Aug 2018 00:00:00 +0200

The project CY 2014‐2017‐Lot1 is a dietary survey conducted in Cyprus and funded through an EFSA procurement under the EU Menu Project. Its objective is to use harmonised methodology for the food consumption survey for children aged zero to nine years old, in a way to be able to transfer the collected data to EFSA according to the specific requirements. A multistage sampling procedure was used for selection of the three age groups (infants 0 to 11 months old, toddlers 12 to 35 months old and children three to nine years old) using the list of private sector's paediatricians & public hospitals (for infants & toddlers) and pre‐primary & elementary schools (for children) respectively. The sampling procedure ensured that 25% of selected participants in each age‐group were surveyed in each season to capture inter‐season variability in consumption. The target sample size was 300 participants for each age group. Well‐trained personnel explained to the parents how to record what their child has consumed so as to extract the maximum possible detail. To determine portion size electronic scales and a picture book were given to parents. A short food frequency questionnaire was administered; measures of height and weight were taken. Interviewers were giving oral and written instructions to parents on how to fill in a three non‐consecutive days dietary record on their first meeting at the participant's home. The “Greek Diet” software has been evaluated for its compatibility with EFSA requirements and updated/upgraded accordingly. All the food consumption data collected were coded according to FoodEx2 and were transmitted to EFSA. In total data from 848 children were collected. The overall response rate was 65%.