An overview of nutritional surveys of school-age Spanish children during 1984-1994

OBJECTIVE: TO review available data an the usual dietary intake of school-a ge Spanish children, by analyzing the nutritional surveys carried out durin g the period 1984-1994. METHODS: Systematic and comprehensive search of surveys with dietary data i n Spanish children aged 6 to 16 years collected during the period 1984-1994 and published after January 1997. The search of bibliographic databases (M EDLINE, IME, ISBN and Teseo), was completed with an extensive search of the gray literature and of unpublished studies through contact with public and private institutions which may fund such studies. The quality of the origi nal surveys was assessed, and the data of the studies fulfilling pre-establ ished quality requirements were summarized and tabulated. RESULTS: We located 65 nutritional surveys in children and adolescents perf ormed between 1984 and 1994, which generated 91 documents. Most surveys (76 .9%) were local, while 18.5% of them studied provinces or regions and 3.1% studied more than one region. Only 4 studies (6.2%) met the quality require ments, but the methods or the presentation of the results of these surveys were too heterogeneous. In spite of that, the available data tends to show a certain lack of balance of macronutrient intakes in relation to the usual dietary recomendations. CONCLUSIONS: Available data on nutritional intake of Spanish school-age chi ldren during 1984-1994 were too heterogeneous to be comparable, even if the analysis was restricted to high-quality surveys. Furthermore, there are no repeated surveys monitoring changes in intake in representative samples of children performed during the study period. This should be taken into acco unt in future research endeavours which should contemplate a well defined s ampling framework and the appropriate methodology to assure the proper inte rpretation of the eventual results.