Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Comparative Study
. 2019 Jan 8;18(1):2.
doi: 10.1186/s12937-018-0425-z.

FFQ versus repeated 24-h recalls for estimating diet-related environmental impact

Elly Mertens  1 , Anneleen Kuijsten  2   3 , Johanna M Geleijnse  2   3 , Hendriek C Boshuizen  2   4 , Edith J M Feskens  2 , Pieter Van't Veer  2   3
Affiliations
Comparative Study

FFQ versus repeated 24-h recalls for estimating diet-related environmental impact

Elly Mertens et al. Nutr J. .

Abstract

Background: There is an increasing interest in estimating environmental impact of individuals' diets by using individual-level food consumption data. However, like assessment of nutrient intakes, these data are prone to substantial measurement errors dependent on the method of dietary assessment, and this often result in attenuation of associations.

Purpose: To investigate the performance of a food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) for estimating the environmental impact of the diet as compared to independent 24-h recalls (24hR), and to study the association between environmental impact and dietary quality for the FFQ and 24hR.

Methods: We analysed cross-sectional data from 1169 men and women, aged 20-76 years, who participated in the NQplus study, the Netherlands. They completed a 216-item FFQ and two replicates of web-based 24hR. Life cycle assessments of 207 food products were used to calculate greenhouse gas emissions, fossil energy and land use, summarised into an aggregated score, pReCiPe. Validity of the FFQ was evaluated against 24hRs using correlation coefficients and attenuation coefficients. Associations with dietary quality were based on Dutch Healthy Diet 15-index (DHD15-index) and Nutrient Rich Diet score (NRD9.3).

Results: For pReCiPe, correlation coefficient between FFQ and 24hR was 0.33 when adjusted for covariates age, gender and BMI, and increased to 0.76 when de-attenuated for within-subject variation in the 24hR. Energy-adjustment slightly reduced these correlations (r = 0.71 for residuals of observed values and 0.59 for residuals of density values). Covariate-adjusted attenuation coefficient for the FFQ was 0.56 (ʎ1 = 0.56 and ʎ1 = 0.65 for observed and density residuals), slightly lower than without covariate adjustment. Diet-related environmental impact was inversely associated with the food-based DHD15-index for both FFQ and 24hR, while associations with the nutrient-based NRD9.3 were inconsistent.

Conclusions: The FFQ slightly underestimated environmental impact when compared to 24hR. Associations with dietary quality are highly dependent on the diet score used, and less dependent on the method of dietary assessment.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Ethics approval and consent to participate

The NQplus study was approved by the ethics committee of Wageningen University and conducted according to the Declaration of Helsinki, and all subjects provided their written informed consent.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Competing interest

The authors declare that they have no competing interest.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Flow diagram of subjects through the study
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Auestad N, Fulgoni VL., 3rd What current literature tells us about sustainable diets: emerging research linking dietary patterns, environmental sustainability, and Economics. Adv Nutr. 2015;6:19–36. doi: 10.3945/an.114.005694.. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Hallström E, Carlsson-Kanyama A, Börjesson P. Environmental impact of dietary change: a systematic review. J Clean Prod. 2015;91:1–11. doi: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2014.12.008. - DOI
    1. Jones AD, Hoey L, Blesh J, Miller L, Green A, Shapiro LF. A systematic review of the measurement of sustainable diets. Adv Nutr. 2016;7:641–664. doi: 10.3945/an.115.011015.. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Nemecek T, Jungbluth N, Canals LM, Schenck R. Environmental impacts of food consumption and nutrition: where are we and what is next? The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment. 2016;21:607–620. doi: 10.1007/s11367-016-1071-3. - DOI
    1. Heller MC, Keoleian GA, Willett WC. Toward a life cycle-based, diet-level framework for food environmental impact and nutritional quality assessment: a critical review. Environ Sci Technol. 2013;47:12632–12647. doi: 10.1021/es4025113.. - DOI - PubMed

Publication types