Sammanfattning
Background: Previous studies have reported a positive association between scoring on healthy
Nordic diet scales and the intake of healthy foods and nutrients, and also with higher intake of meat,
sweets, cakes, and energy in general. These studies have used the same food frequency
questionnaire (FFQ) responses for constructing the diet score as for calculating intakes of foods and
nutrients. Thus, it is not clear whether the coexistence of healthy and less healthy dietary aspects
among adherers to Nordic diets would occur even though separate methods were applied for
exploring these relations.
Objective: To assess the association between adherence to the New Nordic Diet (NND), derived from
an FFQ, and diet quality, determined from two 24-h dietary recall interviews.
Design: In total, 65 parents of toddlers in Southern Norway answered the NND FFQ and two 24-h
dietary recall interviews. NND adherence was determined from the FFQ and categorized into low,
medium, and high adherence. The two 24-h recalls provided data for the intake of specific foods and
nutrients, selected on the basis of the Norwegian food-based guidelines as an indicator of a healthy
diet. The Kruskal–Wallis test was used for assessing differences in food and nutrient intake across
NND groups.
Results: High NND adherence derived from FFQ was associated with a high intake of fruits (p=0.004)
and fiber (p=0.02), and a low intake of meat (p=0.004) and margarines (p=0.05), derived from recalls.
A larger proportion of high NND adherers (68%) complied with the national dietary recommendation
targeting meat intake compared with low NND adherers (29%) (p=0.04).
Conclusion: The present study showed that higher NND adherence measured with FFQ was
associated with a higher intake of selected healthy foods and nutrients, measured with recalls.
However, a higher intake of meat, sweets, and energy, as earlier reported, was not observed.