Early Childhood Dietary Assessment Study

The goal of this crossover randomized controlled trial is to develop a proxy reporting protocol for a traditional 24-hour dietary recall (24HR) and an ecological momentary assessment (EMA) assisted 24-HR for use among children between the ages of 2 and 5 years. The main aims are to: 1. Assess the usability and feasibility of each proxy-reporting protocol and dietary assessment methodology. 2. Describe the dietary misreporting captured using each proxy-reporting protocol, and 3. Explore the accuracy of energy intake estimation of the 24HR and EMA+24HR methods, compared to objectively measured food intake. During the research study, participants will: 1. Be provided with one meal and two snacks each day to provide to their child on three consecutive days. Foods can be offered to their child at times of their choosing, and leftovers will be placed back into reusable food storage containers to be picked up by research study staff. Uneaten foods will be weighed for an objective measure of intake. 2. The day after study-provided foods are given to the child, the adult caregiver will complete a proxy-reported 24HR phone call with a trained research assistant. 3. In the EMA+24HR condition, caregivers will be provided access to an online platform where they will upload pre- and post-photographs of all of their child's eating occasions across the three days that study-provided foods are eaten.

NCT Number	NCT07227272
Lead Sponsor	The University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Conditions	Dietary Assessment
Enrollment	40 participants
Start Date	2025-07-15
Primary Completion	2026-04-30 (estimated)
Study Completion	2026-12 (estimated)
Updated on ClinicalTrials.gov	2026-06-08