Engaging Adolescents in Dietary Assessment: Tools, Challenges, and Best Practices
February 23, 2026 | 12:00 PM - 01:00 PM
Date: Monday, February 23, 2026
Time: 12:00 - 13:00 ET (12:00pm - 1:00pm ET)
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Speakers:
Claire Tugault-Lafleur, PhD, RD (University of Ottawa), Raphaëlle Jacob, PhD, RD (University of Guelph), Alicia Martin, PhD (Dalhousie University)
Webinar description:
Assessing dietary intake among adolescents represents unique opportunities—and challenges—that must be addressed when designing and applying measurement tools. While caregiver reports remain common in research, there is growing recognition of the value of directly engaging adolescents in the assessment process. This webinar will introduce three newly developed screeners designed to measure food intake, eating practices, and food literacy among Canadian adolescents aged 10–17. Participants will gain insight into the development and validation process, including key considerations for creating tools for, and with adolescents. Once assessed for construct validity and reliability, these screeners will support food and nutrition surveillance efforts across Canada.
Learning Objectives:
This webinar will provide participants with information on the following topics:
- Describe the development process and methods used to create three screeners designed to assess food intake, eating practices and food literacy among adolescents living in Canada.
- Present results from content validity assessment, which included an expert panel and cognitive testing among English- and French-speaking adolescents.
- Summarize key methodological considerations and lessons learned from developing dietary assessment tools among the adolescent populations
- Discuss best practices for meaningfully engaging adolescents in dietary assessment research.
Moderator: Jess Haines, PhD, RD (University of Guelph)
About the Speakers:
Claire Tugault-Lafleur is an Associate Professor and Registered Dietitian with over a decade of experience working with families in Quebec, British Columbia, and Ontario. She earned her PhD in Human Nutrition at the University of British Columbia and completed a CIHR-funded postdoctoral fellowship at the BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute, where she established a research program focused on developing and evaluating family- and community-based interventions to prevent childhood obesity. Her research examines childhood eating behaviours and the influence of family and community environments on children’s health and well-being. Dr. Tugault-Lafleur has developed expertise in measuring food parenting practices and leads analyses using large, nation-wide surveys to identify social determinants of eating behaviors among Canadian children and youth. She also collaborates with families and young people to generate evidence supporting school-provided meals in Canada.
Raphaëlle Jacob - is a registered dietitian and a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Family Relations and Applied Nutrition at the University of Guelph. She earned her PhD in nutrition from Université Laval in 2022. Through methodological, epidemiological, and interventional studies, she has developed expertise in eating behaviours and their complex associations with obesity, in both children and adults. Her current research focuses on understanding how the development of obesity-associated eating behaviours can be prevented in children, with the aim of informing precision nutrition interventions for childhood obesity prevention. She also has extensive expertise in validation studies, having led the development and validation of questionnaires to assess eating behaviours in adolescents and adults.
Alicia Martin is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology at Dalhousie University. She studies food systems, food literacy, and food security, promoting sustainability through an interdisciplinary lens. Alicia is interested in how a broadly conceptualized food literacy can be more holistically incorporated into education and school food programming. During her PhD at the University of Guelph she led the development, validity and reliability testing of the Canadian Food Literacy Measure. She also led a Delphi study that resulted in a definition for food systems literacy, and the Food Systems Literacy Competencies Framework for Youth. Her work is now primarily focused on better integrating food literacy education into schools through curricula and resources and training for educators.
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