Objective: To review available data on the usual dietary intake of school-age Spanish children, by analyzing the nutritional surveys carried out during the period 1984-1994.
Methods: Systematic and comprehensive search of surveys with dietary data in Spanish children aged 6 to 16 years collected during the period 1984-1994 and published after January 1997. The search of bibliographic databases (MEDLINE, IME, ISBN and Teseo), was completed with an extensive search of the gray literature and of unpublished studies through contact with public and private institutions which may fund such studies. The quality of the original surveys was assessed, and the data of the studies fulfilling pre-established quality requirements were summarized and tabulated.
Results: We located 65 nutritional surveys in children and adolescents performed between 1984 and 1994, which generated 91 documents. Most surveys (76.9%) were local, while 18.5% of them studied provinces or regions and 3.1% studied more than one region. Only 4 studies (6.2%) met the quality requirements, but the methods or the presentation of the results of these surveys were too heterogeneous. In spite of that, the available data tends to show a certain lack of balance of macronutrient intakes in relation to the usual dietary recommendations.
Conclusions: Available data on nutritional intake of Spanish school-age children during 1984-1994 were too heterogeneous to be comparable, even if the analysis was restricted to high-quality surveys. Furthermore, there are no repeated surveys monitoring changes in intake in representative samples of children performed during the study period. This should be taken into account in future research endeavours which should contemplate a well defined sampling framework and the appropriate methodology to assure the proper interpretation of the eventual results.