Description:
Children’s dietary intake and physical activity are important to their health. The best way to interview children to obtain the most accurate information about dietary intake and physical activity is unknown. For many years, Dr. Baxter has investigated children’s accuracy for recalling dietary intake. She recently began to investigate children’s accuracy for recalling physical activity. Every science progresses to the degree to which its methods have been developed and refined. Results from this research are guiding the development of methods to yield more accurate self-reports of dietary intake and physical activity from children.

Research Collaborators:
Kathleen Collins, BS – University of South Carolina (Institute for Families in Society)
Christina Devlin, RD, LD – University of South Carolina (Institute for Families in Society)
Christopher Finney, MS - University of South Carolina (Institute for Families in Society)
Caroline H. Guinn, RD, LD - University of South Carolina (Institute for Families in Society)
David B. Hitchcock, PhD – University of South Carolina (Department of Statistics)
Russell Pate, PhD – University of South Carolina (Department of Exercise Science)
Megan P. Puryear, RD, LD – University of South Carolina (Institute for Families in Society)
Julie A. Royer, MSPH - University of South Carolina (Institute for Families in Society)
Albert F. Smith, PhD, MS - Cleveland State University (Department of Psychology)
Alyssa Smith, BS – University of South Carolina (Institute for Families in Society)
Kate Vaadi, RD, LD – University of South Carolina (Institute for Families in Society)
Dawn K. Wilson, PhD – University of South Carolina (Department of Psychology)

Research Partners:
Data Collection has occurred, or will occur, in the following school districts:

• Richmond County School District (Augusta,  GA)
• Richland School District One (Columbia, SC)
• Richland School District Two (Columbia, SC)
• Lexington County School District Three (Batesburg-Leesville, SC)
• Lexington School District Four (Swansea, SC)
• School District Five of Lexington and Richland Counties (Chapin, Columbia, Irmo, SC)

Current Extramural Funding

Title:  Children's Dietary Recalls: Prompts, Retention Interval, and Accuracy
Sponsor:  National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
Term:  08/14/2010 - 06/30/2014
Grant number:  R01 HL103737
Principal Investigator:  Suzanne Domel Baxter

Past Extramural Funding

Title: Integrated Recall of Diet and Physical Activity in Children
Sponsor: National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
Term: 06/01/2009 - 05/31/2012
Grant number: 1R21HL093406-01A1
Principal Investigators: Suzanne Domel Baxter and Russ Pate (Exercise Science)

Title:    Children's Dietary Recalls: Methodology and Accuracy
Sponsor:   National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
Term:   08/05/2003 - 07/31/2010
Grant number:   R01 HL074358
Principal Investigator:   Suzanne Domel Baxter

Title:    Memory Errors in Children's Dietary Recalls
Sponsor:   National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
Term:   08/05/2003 - 07/31/2008
Grant number:   R01 HL073081
Principal Investigator:   Suzanne Domel Baxter

Title:    Understanding the Errors in Children's Dietary Recalls
Sponsor:   United States Department of Agriculture (Economic Research Service)
Term:   09/30/2002 – 06/30/2006
Grant number:   FANRP 43-3AEM-2-80101
Principal Investigator:   Suzanne Domel Baxter

Title:    The Accuracy of Children's Dietary Recalls
Sponsor:   National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
Term:   09/30/1999 - 08/31/2005
Grant number:   R01 HL063189
Principal Investigator:   Suzanne Domel Baxter

Title:    Self-Reports of Diet: Children's Cognitive Processing
Sponsor:   National Cancer Institute
Term:   08/01/1993 - 07/31/1999
Grant number:   R29 CA60806
Principal Investigator:   Suzanne Beth Domel

Selected Publications: 

1. Domel SB, Thompson WO, Baranowski T, Smith AF. How children remember what they have eaten.  Journal of the American Dietetic Association 94(11):1267-1272, 1994.
2. Domel SB.  Self-reports of diet: How children remember what they have eaten.  American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 65(suppl):1148S-1152S, 1997.
3. Baxter SD, Thompson WO, Davis HC, Johnson MH. ‘How do you remember you ate . . .?’:  A Delphi technique study to identify retrieval categories from fourth-grade children.  Journal of the American Dietetic Association 97(1):31-36, 1997.
4. Baxter SD, Thompson WO, Davis HC, Johnson MH.  Impact of gender, ethnicity, meal component, and time interval between eating and reporting on accuracy of fourth-graders’ self-reports of school lunch.  Journal of the American Dietetic Association 97(11):1293-1298, 1997.
5. Baxter SD, Thompson WO, Davis HC.  Accuracy of children’s school lunch recalls according to how they remembered what they ate.  Topics in Clinical Nutrition 14(1):58-66, 1998.
6. Baxter SD, Thompson WO, Davis HC, Litaker MS.  Children’s dietary recalls:  The salience of entree and liking for foods on accuracy and order of reporting.  Nutrition 15(11/12):848-853, 1999. 
7. Baxter SD, Thompson WO, Davis HC.  Prompting methods affect the accuracy of children’s school lunch recalls.  Journal of the American Dietetic Association 100:911-918, 2000.
8. Baxter SD, Thompson WO, Litaker MS, Frye FHA, Guinn CH.  Low accuracy and low consistency of fourth-graders’ school breakfast and school lunch recalls.  Journal of the American Dietetic Association 102:386-395, 2002.  PMC1482457.
9. Guinn CH, Baxter SD, Thompson WO, Frye FHA, Kopec CT.  Which fourth-grade children participate in school breakfast and do their parents know it?  Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior 34:159-165, 2002.  PMC1463216.
10. Baxter SD, Thompson WO.  Accuracy by meal component of fourth-graders’ school lunch recalls is less when obtained during a 24-hour recall than as a single meal.  Nutrition Research 22:679-684, 2002.
11. Baxter SD, Thompson WO, Smith AF, Litaker MS, Yin Z, Frye FHA, Guinn CH, Baglio ML, Shaffer NM.  Reverse versus forward order reporting and the accuracy of fourth-graders’ recalls of school breakfast and school lunch.  Preventive Medicine 36:601-614, 2003.
12. Baxter SD, Thompson WO, Litaker MS, Guinn CH, Frye FHA, Baglio ML, Shaffer NM.  Accuracy of fourth-graders’ dietary recalls of school breakfast and school lunch validated with observations:  In-person versus telephone interviews.  Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior 35:124-134, 2003.  PMC1464377.
13. Baxter SD, Smith AF, Guinn CH, Thompson WO, Litaker MS, Baglio ML, Shaffer NM, Frye FHA.  Interview format influences the accuracy of children’s dietary recalls validated with observations.  Nutrition Research 23:1537-1546, 2003.
14. Baxter SD, Smith AF, Litaker MS, Baglio ML, Guinn CH, Shaffer NM.  Children’s social desirability and dietary reports.  Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior 36:84-89, 2004.  PMC1464376.
15. Baxter SD, Smith AF, Litaker MS, Guinn CH, Shaffer NM, Baglio ML, Frye FHA.  Recency affects reporting accuracy of children’s dietary recalls.  Annals of Epidemiology 14:385-390, 2004.
16. Baglio ML, Baxter SD, Guinn CH, Thompson WO, Shaffer NM, Frye FHA.  Assessment of interobserver reliability in nutrition studies that use direct observation of school meals.  Journal of the American Dietetic Association 104:1385-1392, 2004.  PMC1464105.
17. Shaffer NM, Baxter SD, Thompson WO, Baglio ML, Guinn CH, Frye FHA.  Quality control for interviews to obtain dietary recalls from children for research studies.  Journal of the American Dietetic Association 104:1577-1585, 2004.  PMC1435375.
18. Baxter SD, Smith AF, Nichols MD, Guinn CH, Hardin JW.  Children’s dietary reporting accuracy over multiple 24-hour recalls varies by body mass index category.  Nutrition Research 26:241-248, 2006.  PMC1855275.
19. Baxter SD, Smith AF, Litaker MS, Guinn CH, Nichols MD, Miller PH, Kipp K.  Body mass index, sex, interview protocol, and children’s accuracy for reporting kilocalories observed eaten at school meals.  Journal of the American Dietetic Association 106:1656-1662, 2006.  PMC2453785.
20. Baxter SD, Smith AF, Hardin JW, Nichols MD.  Conventional energy and macronutrient variables distort the accuracy of children's dietary reports:  Illustrative data from a validation study of effect of order prompts.  Preventive Medicine 44:34-41, 2007 doi:10.1016/j.ypmed.2006.07.011.  PMC2474708.
21. Baxter SD, Smith AF, Hardin JW, Nichols MD.  Conclusions about children's reporting accuracy for energy and macronutrients over multiple interviews depend on the analytic approach for comparing reported information to reference information.  Journal of the American Dietetic Association 107:595-604, 2007.  PMC2453068.
22. Baxter SD, Royer JA, Hardin JW, Guinn CH, Smith AF.  Fourth-grade children are less accurate in reporting school breakfast than school lunch during 24-hour dietary recalls.  Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior 39:126-133, 2007.  PMC2430664.
23. Smith AF, Baxter SD, Hardin JW, Guinn CH, Royer JA, Litaker MS.  Validation-study conclusions from dietary reports by fourth-grade children observed eating school meals are generalisable to dietary reports by comparable children not observed.  Public Health Nutrition 10:1057-1066, 2007.  PMC2615668.
24. Smith AF, Baxter SD, Hardin JW, Nichols MD.  Conventional analyses of data from dietary validation studies may misestimate reporting accuracy:  Illustration from a study of the effect of interview modality on children’s reporting accuracy.  Public Health Nutrition 10:1247-1256, 2007.  PMC2587272
25. Baxter SD, Hardin JW, Royer JA, Guinn CH, Smith AF.  Insight into the origins of intrusions (reports of uneaten food items) in children’s dietary recalls, based on data from a validation study of reporting accuracy over multiple recalls and school foodservice production records.  Journal of the American Dietetic Association 108:1305-1314, 2008.  PMC2625290
26. Smith AF, Baxter SD, Hardin JW, Royer JA, Guinn CH.  Some intrusions in dietary reports by fourth-grade children are based on specific memories: data from a validation study of the effect of interview modality.  Nutrition Research 28:600-608, 2008.  NIHMSID: NIHMS52236.
27. Baxter SD, Hardin JW, Royer JA, Guinn CH, Smith AF.  Children’s recalls from five dietary-reporting validation studies.  Intrusions in correctly reported and misreported options in school breakfast reports.  Appetite 51:489-500, 2008.  doi:10.1016/j.appet.2008.03.013. PMC2587267
28. Baxter SD, Hardin, JW, Royer, JA, Smith, AF, Guinn, CH. Sources of Intrusions in Children’s Dietary Recalls from a Validation Study of Order Prompts.  Journal of Health Psychology 13: 157-1162, 2008. PMC2585741.
29. Baxter SD, Hardin JW, Smith AF, Royer JA, Guinn CH. Children’s Dietary Recalls from Three Validation Studies: Types of Intrusion Vary with Retention Interval.  Applied Cognitive Psychology 22: 1038-1061, 2008. PMC2480524.
30. Baxter SD, Hardin JW, Smith AF, Royer JA, Guinn CH, Mackelprang AJ. Twenty-Four Hour Dietary Recalls by Fourth-Grade Children Were not Influenced by Observations of School Meals.  Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, 62: 878-885, 2009.  PMC2706913.
31. Baxter SD. Cognitive Processes in Children’s Dietary Recalls: Insight from Methodological Studies. European Journal of Clinical Nutrition 63: S19-S32, 2009. PMC2714261.
32. Baxter SD, Hardin JW, Guinn CH, Royer, JA, Mackelprang AJ. Fourth-Grade Children’s Dietary Recall Accuracy is Influenced by Retention Interval (Target Period and Interview Time).  Journal of the American Dietetic Association 109: 846-856, 2009.  PMC2706914.
33. Baxter SD, Royer JA, Guinn CH, Hardin JW, Smith AF.  Origins of intrusions in children’s dietary recalls: data from a validation study concerning retention interval and information from school food-service production records.  Public Health Nutrition 12:1569-1575, 2009.  PMC2745909.
34. Baxter SD, Guinn CH, Royer JA, Hardin JW, Mackelprang AJ, Smith AF.  Accuracy of children’s school-breakfast reports and school-lunch reports (in 24-hour dietary recalls) differs by retention interval.  European Journal of Clinical Nutrition 63:1394-1403, 2009.  doi:10.1038/ejcn.2009.107.  PMC2788046.
35. Guinn CH, Baxter SD, Royer JA, Hardin JW, Mackelprang AJ, Smith AF.  Fourth-grade children’s dietary recall accuracy for energy intake at school meals differs by social desirability and body mass index percentile in a study concerning retention interval.  Journal of Health Psychology 15:505-514, 2010.  doi:10.1177/1359105309353814.
36. Baxter SD, Guinn CH, Hardin JW, Royer JA, Wilson DK.  Methodological research concerning the accuracy of children’s dietary recalls.  In Ellsworth SJ & Schuster RC (editors), Appetite and Nutritional Assessment.  New York: Nova Science Publishers, Inc, 2010, pages 197-257.  Link to open access chapter:  https://www.novapublishers.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=16499.
37. Baxter SD, Guinn CH, Royer JA, Hardin JW, Smith AF.  Shortening the retention interval of 24-hour dietary recalls increases fourth-grade children’s accuracy for reporting energy and macronutrient intake at school meals.  Journal of the American Dietetic Association 110:1178-1188, 2010.  doi:10.1016/j.jada.2010.05.006.
38. Smith AF, Baxter SD, Hardin JW, Guinn CH, Royer JA.  Relation of children's dietary reporting accuracy to cognitive ability.  American Journal of Epidemiology 173:103-109, 2011.  doi: 10.1093/aje/kwq334.  PMID21059806.
39. Paxton A, Baxter SD, Fleming P, Ammerman A.  Validation of the School Lunch Recall questionnaire to capture school lunch intake of third- to fifth-grade students.  Journal of the American Dietetic Association 111:419-424, 2011.  doi:10.1016/j.jada.2010.11.017.  PMID21338742.