Development and validation of the Young Person's Food Atlas

Abstract

Age appropriate food photographs were developed for children of pre-school (18 m to 4 yrs), primary school (4 to 11 yrs) and secondary school (11 to 16 yrs) age. The foods selected (n = 104) and portion sizes depicted (n = 2050) were derived from intakes recorded during the National Diet and Nutrition Surveys carried out in Great Britain (1,2) . As children rarely consume all of the food served to them and so may never see the amount of food they actually consumed it was necessary to produce tools for estimation of the amount of food served and the amount leftover. Seven weights from the 5 th to 95 th centile of weight served were calculated as equal increments on a log scale. The decision to present the portion sizes on a log scale was made because of evidence from visual perception research. The just noticeable difference (JND) is defined as the minimum difference between two stimuli that leads to a change in experience. Weber's Law asserts that as the magnitude of a stimulus increases, the JND increases (3)