DO CHILDREN EAT WHAT THEY SAY - VALIDITY OF INTENDED FOOD CHOICES AMONG NATIVE-AMERICAN SCHOOL-CHILDREN

Objective, To examine the agreement between school children's intended food choices and observed food choices. Design. Native American stude nts in the second through fifth grade completed a questionnaire that a sked them to select from 10 paired food choices for a given meal or sn ack. Three weeks later students chose among foods identical to those o n the questionnaire as part of their usual school lunch or breakfast o ver three consecutive days; afternoon snacks were also offered. Result s, Agreement between students' intended food choices and observed food choices was examined across 10 food pairs. The composite kappa coeffi cient between intended and observed food choices was 0.09 (95% confide nce interval 0.06, 0.12), indicating virtually no agreement above that expected by chance. There were no differences in agreement by sex or grade. Conclusions, Intended food choices were not significantly assoc iated with observed food choices. It is unclear whether intended food choices reflect nutrition knowledge, socially desirable responses, foo d preferences, or some other dimension of eating behavior. Although re sponsive to school-based nutrition interventions, the interpretation o f changes in intended food choices must be clarified in future researc h.