What Does a Food Expeditor Do?

The food frequency method is a method of estimating the frequency with which a respondent eats certain foods over a specified period of time. These food types refer to dietary surveys in the form of questionnaires under the condition that a variety of foods are abundant, to investigate the types of foods that individuals regularly consume, and they are often used in epidemiological investigations of the relationship between diet and health. Evaluate dietary nutrition based on the number of foods eaten daily, weekly, monthly, or even annually.

The food frequency method / food frequency method is a method for estimating the frequency with which a respondent eats certain foods over a specified period of time. These food types refer to dietary surveys in the form of questionnaires under the condition that a variety of foods are abundant, to investigate the types of foods that individuals regularly consume, and they are often used in epidemiological investigations of the relationship between diet and health. Evaluate dietary nutrition based on the number of foods eaten daily, weekly, monthly, or even annually.

Since the 1950s, nutritionists have developed the food frequency method after more than 30 years of research. In actual use, it can be divided into qualitative, quantitative and semi-quantitative food frequency methods. In recent years, it has been used to understand the daily intake over a certain period of time to study the relationship between past dietary habits and certain chronic diseases.

The food frequency method has been widely used in the past few decades. In the epidemiological study of the relationship between diet and chronic diseases, data results can be obtained by the food frequency method, and individuals are classified or grouped according to the specific food intake of the survey. Compared with the dietary history method, the food frequency method has less burden on investigators and responders and less workload. The food frequency method is used because the questionnaire is standardized, which greatly reduces survey bias among different investigators. If you use the mailed food frequency questionnaire to investigate, be sure to complete the instructions.

The food frequency questionnaire varies with the listed foods, the length of the reference time, the specified frequency interval, the method of estimating the food share, and the management method of the food frequency method. These are considered to be food frequency methods. The procedure of this method is very different, and its implementation in different groups is also very different. Therefore, it is necessary to verify the effectiveness of the method in specific conditions and special groups.

The food frequency method questionnaire should include two aspects: one is the food list; the other is the frequency of food, that is, the number of times a certain food is eaten in a certain period of time. The determination of the food list should be based on the purpose of the survey, choosing foods that are frequently used by the survey, foods that contain the nutrients to be studied, or foods that have a large difference in intake between the respondents. If a comprehensive dietary intake assessment is performed, the foods commonly used by the surveyed subjects are used; to study the relationship between nutrition-related diseases and dietary intake, several foods related to related diseases or foods containing special nutrients are used.

A qualitative food frequency survey usually refers to obtaining the number of times each food was eaten in a specific period (for example, the past month) without collecting data on the amount of food and the size of the food. The length of the investigation period can be as short as a few days, one week, one month, or three months to more than one year. Respondents can answer a variety of food intakes from one week to one year, from eating once a month to once a day, six times a week or more. The food frequency questionnaire can be completed by the investigator or by a surveyed person with a certain education level.

Quantitative food frequency method can get the intake of food and nutrients of different populations, and analyze the relationship between dietary factors and disease. The type of food in a food frequency survey depends on the purpose of the survey. Quantitative methods require the subject to provide the amount of food eaten, usually with the aid of a measurement aid. When using the semi-quantitative method, researchers often provide standard (or accurate) reference sample sizes of food shares for subjects to use as a reference for estimating the amount of food in response. If a survey is to understand the intake of certain nutrients, it is necessary to investigate foods rich in this nutrient such as calcium and vitamin A.

To calculate your intake of these nutrients, you need to list foods that are rich in these nutrients. Estimated average food share size should be used to calculate intake.

The food frequency method suggests an individual's usual intake of various food groups. When the survey contains information on food share size or certain food consumption information, it can be evaluated or graded based on individual nutrient intake.

The law can be administered by the investigator or by the respondent. Questionnaires conducted by the respondents themselves may require little time to complete, encode, etc. Respondents have a light burden, so the response rate is high. The law survey is easy to automate and is low cost. The main advantage of the food frequency method is that it can quickly obtain the types and amounts of food intake that usually reflect long-term nutrient intake patterns; it can be used as a basis for studying the relationship between chronic diseases and dietary patterns; the results can also be used as dietary awareness among the masses Educational reference. It can be used to study the relationship between diet and disease in epidemiological research.

The disadvantage of the food frequency method is that it needs to recall the past food. The burden of the respondent depends on the number, complexity, and quantification process of the listed foods. Compared with other methods, the quantification of the food share is not accurate.

In addition, preparing and verifying the food list will take a certain amount of time and effort; the law cannot provide information on the variation between days; foods from people in specific cultural areas are special and are not listed in the food list, so they are different for the population. The applicability of this method is questionable; longer food tables and longer review times often lead to higher intakes; and the cognitive process of answering questions about food frequency can be more complex than those about each The issue of daily food patterns is much more complicated. Current food patterns may affect past meal reviews, resulting in bias and poor accuracy.