24-HOUR RECALL OVERESTIMATES THE DIETARY-INTAKE OF MALNOURISHED CHILDREN

Food intake and morbidity are the two main proximal determinants of ch ildhood malnutrition. Intake is usually assessed through the 24-h reca ll method. Few studies, however, have evaluated the accuracy of this m ethod; in particular, it is not known whether accuracy varies accordin g to the child's nutritional status. The intake of 50 children (<2 y o ld), of whom 25 were underweight (weight-for-age more than 2 SD below the National Center for Health Statistics reference), as evaluated thr ough weighing of all foods (gold standard) and through recall. The ove rall intakes of energy, fat and protein were significantly greater acc ording to the recall method than by weighing. The trend towards overes timation was more marked for malnourished children than for well-nouri shed children. The possibility of such bias should be taken into accou nt in future studies.