Comprehensive assessment of schoolchildren’s diets

For a comprehensive assessment of schoolchildren’s diets, a methodology was developed using the diet quality index (DQI) based on data on frequency of food consumption. The aim of this work is to develop a method for comprehensive assessment of schoolchildren’s diets, to test it using data on frequency of food consumption and to investigate the relationship between DQI and various characteristics of the surveyed. The method was developed using a database of diet monitoring data for students of secondary schools obtained by Rospotrebnadzor in 2023 within implementation of the Population Health Protection Federal Project of the Demography National Project in 2023 in 85 subjects of the Russian Federation. Data on frequency of food consumption were used to develop and test the method. Statistical data analysis was performed using the IBM SPSS Statistics 20.0, USA. To assess the statistical significance of differences between the groups, parametric methods of variance analysis were used: Student's t-test and ANOVA. Based on data on frequency of food consumption, a method has been developed for comprehensive assessment of schoolchildren’s diets using DQI. Nineteen groups of food products were selected: 9 groups of foods that are most important for formation of a healthy diet and 10 groups of foods with an excess content of critically important nutrients, consumption of which should be limited. DQI below the average value (below 42.8 points) was detected in 52 % of schoolchildren. Almost half of the children (48.8 %) had DQI within the range of 35-50 points. In 27.5 % of children, DQI of less than 35 points was detected. The stud also included analysis of relationships between DQI established for schoolchildren and sex, age and other socio-demographic characteristics. The developed DQI makes it possible to quickly conduct comprehensive assessment of diet quality and can be used to analyze effectiveness of implemented measures aimed at NCDs prevention.