Quantified mouthing activity data from a four-child pilot field study

Zartarian, VG; Ferguson, AC; Leckie, JO

HERO ID

1065510

Reference Type

Journal Article

Year

1998

Language

English

HERO ID 1065510
In Press No
Year 1998
Title Quantified mouthing activity data from a four-child pilot field study
Authors Zartarian, VG; Ferguson, AC; Leckie, JO
Journal Journal of Exposure Analysis and Environmental Epidemiology
Volume 8
Issue 4
Page Numbers 543–553
Abstract Non-dietary ingestion exposure, defined as contact between the inside of the mouth and non-food items such as fingers, toys, dirt, and other objects, may be a significant route of exposure and source of subsequent health risk for young children. Questionnaires and diaries, the current conventional methods for collecting activity data, cannot capture the detail necessary to quantify mouthing behavior relevant to non-dietary ingestion exposure. New video translation methodologies and computer software have been applied to 31 hours of video tapes (6.0, 6.6, 8.4, and 10.1 waking hours of four children), yielding detailed object-to-mouth contact duration and frequency information for children aged two to four. The collected data reveal that the four children inserted non-dietary items into their mouth between 1 and 7% of the time they were videotaped on the study day: the median mouth contact duration over all non-dietary object categories ranged from 2 to 4 seconds; the total percentage of contacts that lasted for less than or equal to ten seconds ranged from 73% to 87%; and the median frequencies of mouth contact with non-dietary objects for the four children ranged from 2 to 20 contacts per hour. Non-dietary objects mouthed most frequently by the children were skin, hard toys, hard surfaces, and photographs. The mean ratio for the four children of the total percent time that the children placed non-dietary objects in the mouth to total percent time that food and other diet-related objects were placed inside the mouth was 0.24.
Wosid WOS:000165532200006
Is Certified Translation No
Dupe Override No
Is Public Yes
Language Text English