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ARS Home » Pacific West Area » Davis, California » Western Human Nutrition Research Center » Obesity and Metabolism Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #424742
Research Project: Utilizing Precision Approaches to Refine Dietary Guidance of Americans to Reduce Chronic Disease

Location: Obesity and Metabolism Research

Title: Validation of a brief vegetable variety questionnaire to assess diet quality

Author
item Keim, Nancy
item SHILTS, MICAL - Sacramento State University
item DIAZ RIOS, KARINA - University Of California
item ZENG, XIAOWEI - University Of California, Davis
item SUN, JINGZHI - University Of California, Davis
item DRAKE, CHRISTIANA - University Of California, Davis
item TOWNSEND, MARILYN - University Of California, Davis

Submitted to: Current Developments in Nutrition
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 2/22/2026
Publication Date: 2/28/2026
Citation: Keim, N.L., Shilts, M.K., Diaz Rios, K., Zeng, X., Sun, J., Drake, C.M., Townsend, M.S. 2026. Validation of a brief vegetable variety questionnaire to assess diet quality. Current Developments in Nutrition. 10(4). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cdnut.2026.107667.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cdnut.2026.107667

Interpretive Summary: A simple questionnaire is needed to use in settings where nutrition education is delivered. Current methods to evaluate food intake are time-consuming and may require a professional to administer. We developed a questionnaire with pictures of vegetables that can be completed in less than 10 minutes. We successfully validated this questionnaire by comparing it to two accepted measures of diet quality. This questionnaire can identify persons whose diet quality scores are low. As a result, health professionals can better focus their nutrition counseling efforts on these individuals.

Technical Abstract: Background: Obtaining estimates of food intake is laborious and expensive via the 24-hour dietary recall. Simpler methods for estimating dietary quality are needed for clinic settings and evaluating nutrition education interventions. Objective: To validate a simple, pictorial questionnaire for assessing diet quality using vegetable variety as the indicator. Methods: A questionnaire, My Veggies, containing 28 pictures of vegetables and questions about food preparation, eating at home, and eating fast food was administered to 258 healthy adults, aged 18 to 65 years. Food intake was captured with three dietary recalls and used to calculate the Healthy Eating Index-2015 (HEI) and dietary energy density (DED), both serving as measures of diet quality. Using cluster analysis My Veggies generated three vegetable variety groups: high (HV, n=84), medium (MV, n=107), and low (LV, n=67). Median values for HEI and DED were compared between variety groups to determine if differences existed. Results: Demographic characteristics were not different between variety groups. The LV group had a median total HEI score (interquartile range) that was lower, 54.4 (15.6), compared to HV 62.1 (17.3) and MV 68.0 (18.6) groups (p<0.0001 for both). Also, the LV variety group had a median DED score (interquartile range) that was higher, 2.6 (0.4), compared to the HV 2.2 (0.6) and MV 2.3 (0.5) variety groups (p<0.0001 for both). HV and MV reported cooking from scratch more often than LV (P<0.0001). HV and MV reported eating out and eating fast food less frequently than LV (ANOVA p<0.0001; post-hoc mean comparisons HV and MV vs LV p<0.0001. Conclusions: This study provides evidence for the validation of a simple, pictorial questionnaire for evaluating diet quality using vegetable variety. My Veggies could be used by health professionals as an evaluation tool for community nutrition education interventions or as a screener for counseling in a clinical setting.