Angela Wallace, MSc, RD is a project coordinator with the Human Health and Nutritional Sciences Department at the University of Guelph. She has experience in nutrition research that focuses on family-based food skills and dietary assessment validation. In addition, Angela works in private practice, where she supports families in creating healthy routines around nutrition and physical activity.
For the first time since the Food Guide’s development, the 2019 Canada’s Food Guide (CFG) moved beyond providing guidance on what foods Canadians should eat to also include guidance on specific eating habits that often help to support healthful dietary intake, i.e. enablers to healthy eating. These habits include eating meals with others, enjoying food, cooking more often, and being mindful when eating. Study objectives are to develop and test a screener to assess alignment with the CFG ‘how to eat’ recommendations. Similar to the screener for the ‘what to eat’ recommendations, the ‘how to eat’ screener is intended to be a brief, self-administered tool for adults that will be available in French and English. Key considerations in the development of the ‘how to eat’ screener include identifying items that adequately assess the latent constructs addressed in the ‘how to eat’ recommendations and ensuring items are relevant for Canadians in various family structures and living situations. Face and content validity will be examined through consultation with experts and cognitive testing with adults, with oversampling of adults with lower literacy. Factor analysis will be conducted using data from French and English-speaking adults. Correlation analyses will also be conducted to examine the associations between scores on the ‘how to eat’ tool and measures of dietary intake. Test-retest reliability of the ‘how to eat’ screener will also be evaluated. To allow researchers and practitioners to assess alignment with all of the 2019 CFG recommendations, a well-tested, easy-to-implement ‘how to eat’ screener is needed.