Prevalence and characteristics of energy intake under‐reporting among Australian adults in 1995 and 2011 to 2012

Abstract

Aim Misreporting of energy intake is a common source of measurement error found in dietary surveys, resulting in biased estimates and a reduction in statistical power. The present study aims to refine the conventional cut‐off methods and to examine the extent to which Australian adults misreport their energy intake, and the characteristics of under‐reporters between two time points. Methods A revised Goldberg cut‐off approach was used to identify those who reported implausible intake amounts in a secondary analysis of two large cross‐sectional surveys. Identified low energy reporters were then used as the outcome variable in Poisson regressions to examine association with sex, age, body mass index (BMI), weight perceptions, education, relative household income, geographic remoteness and relative socioeconomic disadvantage. Results The prevalence of under‐reporting increased from 32% in 1995 to 41% in 2012, most of which can be attributed to an increase in men. Under‐reporting has a positive association with BMI and relative socioeconomic disadvantage, but an inverse association with age, education, relative household income and residence in inner regional areas. Conclusions Under‐reporting of energy intake is high in Australian adults, and appears have worsened over time in men, which could be partly explained by the upward trend in obesity. The use of conventional Goldberg method to identify under‐reporters can greatly underestimate the prevalence of under‐reporting, future studies should consider selecting a lower critical value to improve accuracy.

Effects of Vitamin D Status and Supplements on Anthropometric and Biochemical Indices in a Clinical Setting: A Retrospective Study

“…The current analysis examined data was neither randomized nor blinded, and therefore the potential effects of conscious or unconscious bias cannot be discounted. Another limitation is the use of 24 h recall to assess adherence to the dietary plan, which is known to be biased by misreporting [31,32], specifically underreporting. Due to this limitation, which is difficult to overcome, it is not possible to properly assess the role that different energy intakes affected weight loss.…”

Underreporting of Dietary Intake: Key Issues for Weight Management Clinicians

“…Despite continued calls for research to better understand the psychosocial correlates of underreporting and differential reporting, there has been no substantial new work in this area over the past decade. Studies continue to focus on characterizing underreporters and describing associations, rather than delving into psychological processes and interaction of influencing factors [8,10,[12][13][14][36][37][38][39]. No studies were identified over the last 5 years that included interviews, focus groups, or other qualitative measures to better understand the psychosocial factors underlying underreporting of dietary intake among people with obesity.…”

Dietary intake in health and disease, challenges in measuring and reporting diet‐disease relationships

“…Of note was that the increase in under-reporting was largely in men, rising from 24% to 41%, in contrast to women where it remained constant at around 40%. 2 By comparison in a small sample of women with PCOS (n = 36) and control women (n = 37) energy under-reporting was identified for 47.2% of women with PCOS vs 2.7% among controls. 3 Women kept a 3-day food diary and individual level PAL factors were applied to identify mis-reporters using the Goldberg cut-off method.…”

“…Both surveys were administered face‐to‐face by interviewers and although 1995 was “pen and paper”, you would not expect this increase to be attributed to the interviewer's use of a computer to administer the recall in 2011‐12. Of note was that the increase in under‐reporting was largely in men, rising from 24% to 41%, in contrast to women where it remained constant at around 40% …”

“…This issue of the journal includes descriptions of characteristics of mis‐reporters of total energy intake from the previous two national nutrition surveys, as well as in the context of a clinical population of women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) . These papers highlight that energy intake under‐reporting is substantial, with population level prevalence of under‐reporting of total energy intake of 32% in 1995 ( n = 1196) and 41% in 2012 ( n = 5332) using 24‐hour recalls to assess intake and two variants of the Goldberg cut‐off .…”