Abstract 10453: Fat, Fibre, Sodium Score -A Quick And Valid Tool to Measure Eating Behavior Change Patterns in Cardiac Prevention & Rehabilitation Programs

Abstract

Introduction: The history of nutrition scoring tools and food frequency evaluations is plagued with errors and limitations. However, there remains a need to capture outcomes for eating patterns and nutrition behavior change. Our past work led to development of a valid eating stage scoring tool but it was labor intensive and not practical for many clinic or program settings so we developed a new scoring tool. Hypothesis: The new Fat, Fibre, Sodium score is a quickly applied tool to accurately represent eating behavior and effectively measure nutrition changes, during and post cardiac rehabilitation (CR) programs. Methods: Patients attending a community CR program, participated in an intensive nutrition behavior change intervention with a dietitian. Nutrition evaluation was conducted using three methods; a general Food Score, the new self evaluation tool called the Fat Fibre Sodium score (FFSS) and thirdly,the dietitian's nutrition assessment and evaluation. Patients also had biomedical measures, exercise stress testing and anthropometrics at baseline and 3 month program completion. Results: In the General Food Score,patients went from meeting 79% to 84% of healthy eating guidelines(p<0.0001). 390 patients completed the new FFSS and had improvements for each category; Fat, Fibre and Sodium (p<0.0001). Fibre intake increased from 19 g/day to 27g day. The FFSS for Fibre was validated, and every 8 out of 10 patients had self-scores with 100% accuracy when compared to the dietitian evaluation (p<0.001) The FFSS Fat scores went from 'moderate' to 'low' intake and while the dietitian's assessment validated the fat score at program completion, the baseline FFSS was underreported for fat intake. The sodium component of the FFSS was not valid. Impact of nutrition changes showed that a FFSS 'low fat' score at program completion led to statistically significant weight changes , and LDL lowering (p<0.001)even while changes in exercise were held constant. Conclusions: The FFSS tool is easy to use and is a valid measure of eating behavior changes with fibre intake and also accurately represents dietary fat intake at program completion. Although work needs to continue on the sodium component of the FFSS, the new Fat Fibre Scoring tool can be used with confidence in CR settings.