Determining What Constitutes Nutritional Risk in Toddlers (18-35 months): First Steps in the Development of Toddler NutriSTEP (Registered Trademark)

This research is part of an ongoing program, Nutrition Screening Tool for Every Preschooler (NutriSTEP®). NutriSTEP® is a valid and reliable 17-item, parent-administered, questionnaire for nutritional risk in preschoolers (3-5 years of age). Due to an expressed need across Canada, the specific objective of this research was to create a draft toddler (18-35 month) NutriSTEP®. Based on results from a comprehensive literature review, focus groups (n=6) with 48 parents of toddlers, and input from 13 pediatric nutrition experts, many questions from the original preschooler NutriSTEP® questionnaire were refined or removed, and novel questions were added. Basic changes included combining separate fruit and vegetable intake questions, and adding breast milk and formula as examples of dairy products. In conclusion, a 19 item Toddler NutriSTEP® was created to reflect the differences in nutritional risk between preschoolers and toddlers. Next steps in the development process include refinement, test-retest reliability and criterion validation.