A need for empirical evidence concerning the accuracy of joint parent : child reports of children's dietary intake / Suzanne D. Baxter, Caroline H. Guinn, Albert F. Smith, Julie A. Royer, David B. Hitchcock

The 24-hour dietary recall is among the most trusted of dietary assessment methods and considered optimal for collecting dietary data. By providing high-quality intake data with minimal bias, the 24-hour dietary recall is the preferred tool to monitor diets of populations and to study diet−disease associations. Although 24-hour dietary recall data collected from adults can be reasonably accurate, the accuracy of 24-hour dietary recall data collected from children is less so. One approach to collecting 24-hour dietary recall data about children's intake has been joint recalls-interviewing a child and parent together about the child's intake. Joint recalls are used widely, yet policy makers, researchers, and practitioners seem to have overlooked the sparse research concerning the accuracy of joint recalls. This commentary summarizes the use of joint recalls in national dietary surveys, discusses past research on joint recalls, provides new descriptive analyses of 24-hour dietary recall data about children's intake from national surveys to identify issues about joint recalls, and identifies research needs.

Nutrition.