Nutrients (Jun 2020)

Development and Validation of a Questionnaire to Assess Adherence to the Healthy Food Pyramid in Spanish Adults

  • Andrea Gila-Díaz,
  • Silvia M. Arribas,
  • Ángel Luis López de Pablo,
  • Ma Rosario López-Giménez,
  • Sophida Phuthong,
  • David Ramiro-Cortijo

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/nu12061656
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 12, no. 6
p. 1656

Abstract

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We aimed to design and validate a new questionnaire of adherence to healthy food pyramid (HFP) (AP-Q), to improve previous instruments. The questionnaire was self-administered and included 28 questions from 10 categories (physical activity, health habits, hydration, grains, fruits, vegetables, oil type, dairy products, animal proteins, and snacks). A population of 130 Spanish adults answered it, obtaining scores from each category and a global score of HFP adherence (AP-Q score). Validation was performed through principal components analysis (PCA) and internal consistency by Cronbach’s alpha. AP-Q was also externally validated with Kidmed-test, answered by 45 individuals from the cohort. The global AP-Q score was 5.1 ± 1.3, with an internal consistency of 64%. The PCA analysis extracted seven principal components, which explained 68.5% of the variance. The global AP-Q score was positively associated with Kidmed-test score. Our data suggest that AP-Q is a complete and robust questionnaire to assess HFP adherence, with several advantages: easy to complete, cost-effective, timesaving and has the competency to assess, besides diet, several features affecting health status, lacking in other instruments. We suggest that AP-Q could be useful in epidemiological research, although it requires additional calibration to analyze its reproducibility and validation in other populations.

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