Food Patterns Equivalents Database

Retooling the Food Patterns Equivalents Database

One goal of the National Collaborative on Childhood Obesity Research (NCCOR) is to increase and improve national, state, and local surveillance of childhood obesity, and one activity identified to achieve that goal is to strengthen the process for updating USDA's food guidance-based database, the Food Patterns Equivalents Database (FPED).

Dietary databases constitute the basic infrastructure for all types of dietary studies. They translate the foods reported into quantities of dietary constituents of interest. For the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey dietary intake data, two databases are used: the Food and Nutrient Database for Dietary Studies (FNDDS) and the FPED. The FNDDS provides information on nutrient/food components (e.g. calories, calcium, sodium, etc.) while the FPED provides information on guidance-based food groups (e.g. cups of fruit, milk cup equivalents, total grains, etc.). Both are available free for users. However, there has only been an FPED data release for the 2001-02 and 2003-04 survey periods, both of which were released four years past the end of data collection. The goal of the NCCOR effort is to retool FPED so that updates can be timelier, the process can be more self-sustaining, and new food groups of interest can be included.

Without additional support, USDA has planned an FPED data release for the 2007-08 survey period in 2013 and an FPED data release for the 2011-12 survey period in 2014. However, with stakeholder support, USDA will be able to have an FPED release for the 2005-06 and the 2009-10 survey periods as well. NCCOR is hoping to get enough support to make the timely release of data for these additional survey periods a reality. In total, they are looking for stakeholder support of $400,000.

Project Leads:
Susan Krebs-Smith, NCI
Jill Reedy, NCI
Alanna Moshfegh, USDA