#523: How Trustworthy is the Food Frequency Questionnaire in Evaluating Dietary Intake? – Deirdre Tobias, ScD
Sigma Nutrition Radio
Danny Lennon
4.8 • 626 Ratings
🗓️ 21 May 2024
⏱️ 75 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Food Frequency Questionnaire (FFQ) stands as a cornerstone in nutritional research, offering valuable insights into dietary patterns and habits over a specified period. Despite its widespread use and established utility, the FFQ has not been immune to criticism, much of which arises from a misunderstanding of its purpose and inherent limitations.
At its core, the FFQ is designed to assess the frequency and quantity of food consumption, aiming to capture long-term dietary behaviors rather than precise intake levels. Researchers employ it to investigate relationships between diet and various health outcomes, such as chronic diseases or nutritional deficiencies.
However, critics argue that its reliance on self-reported data introduces biases and inaccuracies, leading to potential misestimation of nutrient intake. Additionally, some detractors question the FFQ’s ability to capture sporadic or infrequent dietary choices accurately.
Yet, it’s crucial to recognize that the FFQ serves a specific purpose within the realm of nutrition research. While there are no doubt limitations, its strength lies in its ability to capture habitual dietary behaviors over an extended period. Moreover, researchers employ various strategies, such as validation studies and data adjustment techniques, to enhance the FFQ’s reliability and validity.
In this episode, world-leading nutrition epidemiologist Dr. Deirdre Tobias discusses the development of the FFQ, the key concepts that are crucial to understand, common criticisms of the FFQ, and how we should evaluate the utility of this tool.
Links:
- Go to episode page (guest biography, links, etc.)
- Subscribe to Sigma Nutrition Premium
- Interested in improving your ability to read nutrition research? Take a look at our course Applied Nutrition Literacy
- Join the Sigma Nutrition newsletter
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Sigma Nutrition Radio. This is episode 523 of the podcast. My name is Danny Lennon and you are very welcome to the show. |
| 0:24.4 | Today we're going to be digging into the details of nutrition science methods and |
| 0:29.2 | specifically putting our focus in on food frequency questionnaires, a tool that is |
| 0:34.0 | incredibly common and we can get a lot of data from in much of the research we have |
| 0:39.3 | on diet disease relationships, but is also one that is often maligned for various reasons and |
| 0:45.7 | has faced a number of different criticisms. Those range from very valid and fair criticisms |
| 0:50.8 | within the field to more misunderstandings or criticisms that are unduly unfair or |
| 0:58.0 | are misunderstanding how the tool is used and how it should be used. |
| 1:02.9 | And so we're hopefully going to walk through all of that. |
| 1:05.6 | To do so, my guest today is Dr. Deirdre Tobias, a nutrition epidemiologist based at Harvard, who has been on |
| 1:12.5 | the podcast before back in episode 386. You may remember where we went in through all sorts of |
| 1:17.6 | details read to study design, nutrition epidemiology more broadly, etc. And on a number of our |
| 1:24.4 | episodes related to epidemiology, we have referenced Dr. Tobias' work. |
| 1:29.6 | And so she is on the podcast to go through food frequency questionnaires all the way from |
| 1:35.3 | the really interesting history and background to its development, what exactly they are |
| 1:39.7 | aimed to capture, and also importantly what they are not aimed to capture some of the valid |
| 1:45.6 | limitations as well as some of the misunderstandings we have around them and then how |
| 1:49.9 | we can better understand not only how to use them properly but also to interpret |
| 1:55.6 | and understand what they mean and be able to identify when they are being used |
| 2:00.0 | incorrectly or not as opposed to going |
| 2:02.9 | to a reductionist view of this is a tool that is not useful at all, or it is going to be useful |
| 2:09.7 | in all contexts. And so hopefully by going through this, you'll have a greater appreciation of |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Danny Lennon, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Danny Lennon and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.