Abstract
Unusual meal timing has been associated with a higher prevalence of chronic disease. Those at greater risk include shift workers and evening chronotypes. This study aimed to validate the content of a Chrononutrition Questionnaire for shift and non-shift workers to identify temporal patterns of eating in relation to chronotype. Content validity was determined using a Delphi study of three rounds. Experts rated the relevance of, and provided feedback on, 46 items across seven outcomes: meal regularity, times of first eating occasion, last eating occasion, largest meal, main meals/snacks, wake, and sleep, which were edited in response. Items with greater than 70% consensus of relevance were accepted. Rounds one, two, and three had 28, 26, and 24 experts, respectively. Across three rounds, no outcomes were irrelevant, but seven were merged into three for ease of usage, and two sections were added for experts to rate and comment on. In the final round, all but one of 29 items achieved greater than 70% consensus of relevance with no further changes. The Chrononutrition Questionnaire was deemed relevant to experts in circadian biology and chrononutrition, and could represent a convenient tool to assess temporal patterns of eating in relation to chronotype in future studies.
Highlights
A total of 64 experts in the field of circadian biology or chrononutrition were invited to participate in the study; 59 were initially identified through non-probability purposive sampling, while five people were referred on by the experts in the initial list as suitable peers through subsequent snowball sampling
Previous research [26] and expert consensus from the current study indicate that chrononutrition measurement needs to include times at which food is consumed, and information about amount consumed, regularity of meals, and duration and timing of the eating window
Through the Delphi survey method, experts in circadian biology and chrononutrition provided insights based on their experience to evaluate and improve the relevance of a Chrononutrition Questionnaire
Summary
Circadian rhythms are daily rhythms in our body that repeat every 24 h; they determine our behaviour, such as when we wake and sleep, as well as the times at which metabolic processes occur within our body [1,2]. These rhythms run even in the absence of external cues and are regulated internally by a “central clock” in the Suprachiasmatic. Eating and sleeping at irregular hours in relation to the light–dark cycle results in misalignment between central and peripheral clocks, or circadian misalignment [4], which has shown to negatively impact multiple physiological markers including raised blood pressure and elevated inflammation [5]. Circadian misalignment affects up to 1.4 million shift workers in Australia [6], who work outside of usual weekday work hours of 9 a.m. to
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