Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2016 Sep;70(9):1028-33.
doi: 10.1038/ejcn.2016.43. Epub 2016 May 25.

Cognitive ability, social desirability, body mass index and socioeconomic status as correlates of fourth-grade children's dietary-reporting accuracy

A F Smith  1 , S D Baxter  2 , D B Hitchcock  3 , C J Finney  2   4 , J A Royer  2   4 , C H Guinn  2
Affiliations

Cognitive ability, social desirability, body mass index and socioeconomic status as correlates of fourth-grade children's dietary-reporting accuracy

A F Smith et al. Eur J Clin Nutr. 2016 Sep.

Abstract

Background/objectives: To investigate the relationship of reporting accuracy in 24-h dietary recalls to child-respondent characteristics-cognitive ability, social desirability, body mass index (BMI) percentile and socioeconomic status (SES).

Subjects/methods: Fourth-grade children (mean age 10.1 years) were observed eating two school meals and interviewed about dietary intake for 24 h that included those meals. (Eight multiple-pass interview protocols operationalized the conditions of an experiment that crossed two retention intervals-short and long-with four prompts (ways of eliciting reports in the first pass)). Academic achievement-test scores indexed cognitive ability; social desirability was assessed by questionnaire; height and weight were measured to calculate BMI; nutrition-assistance program eligibility information was obtained to index SES. Reported intake was compared to observed intake to calculate measures of reporting accuracy for school meals at the food-item (omission rate; intrusion rate) and energy (correspondence rate; inflation ratio) levels. Complete data were available for 425 of 480 validation-study participants.

Results: Controlling for manipulated variables and other measured respondent characteristics, for one or more of the outcome variables, reporting accuracy increased with cognitive ability (omission rate, intrusion rate, correspondence rate, P<0.001), decreased with social desirability (correspondence rate, P<0.0004), decreased with BMI percentile (correspondence rate, P=0.001) and was better by higher- than by lower-SES children (intrusion rate, P=0.001). Some of these effects were moderated by interactions with retention interval and sex.

Conclusions: Children's dietary-reporting accuracy is systematically related to such respondent characteristics as cognitive ability, social desirability, BMI percentile and SES.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. Beaton GH. Approaches to analysis of dietary data: Relationship between planned analyses and choice of methodology. Am J Clin Nutr. 1994;59(1 Suppl):253S–261S. - PubMed
    1. Tarasuk VS, Brooker A. Interpreting epidemiologic studies of diet-disease relationships. J Nutr. 1997;127:1847–1852. - PubMed
    1. Hebert JR, Ma Y, Clemow L, Ockene IS, Saperia G, Stanek EJ, et al. Gender differences in social desirability and social approval bias in dietary self-report. Am J Epidemiol. 1997;146:1046–1055. - PubMed
    1. Tooze JA, Subar AF, Thompson FE, Troiano R, Schatzkin A, Kipnis V. Psychosocial predictors of energy underreporting in a large doubly labeled water study. Am J Clin Nutr. 2004;79:795–804. - PubMed
    1. Baxter SD, Hardin JW, Guinn CH, Royer JA, Mackelprang AJ, Smith AF. Fourth-grade children’s dietary recall accuracy is influenced by retention interval (target period and interview time) J Am Diet Assoc. 2009;109:846–856. - PMC - PubMed

Publication types