Assessment of habitual energy and macronutrient intake in adults: comparison of a seven day food record with a dietary history interview

Abstract

Objective: To examine the quantitative agreement between a 7 day food record and a diet history interview when these are conducted under the same conditions and to evaluate whether the two methods assess habitual diet intake differently among subgroups of age and body mass index (BMI). Design: Cross-sectional study. Setting: Population study, Denmark. Subjects: A total of 175 men and 173 women aged 30 -60 y, selected randomly from a larger population sample of Danish adults. Interventions: All subjects had habitual diet intake assessed by a diet history interview and completed a 7 day food record within 3 weeks following the interview. The diet history interview and coding of records were performed by the same trained dietician. Main outcome measure: Median between-method difference in assessment of total energy intake, absolute intake of macronutrients, and nutrient energy percentages. Difference between reported energy intake from both methods and estimated energy expenditure in different subgroups. Results: Energy and macronutrient intake was assessed slightly higher by the 7 day food record than by the diet history interview, but in absolute terms the differences were negligible. The between-method difference in assessment of total energy intake appeared to be stable over the range of age and BMI in both sexes. As compared to estimated total energy expenditure, both diet assessment methods underestimated energy intake by approximately 20%. For both methods the under-reporting increased by BMI in both sexes and by age in men. Conclusions: Energy and macronutrient intake data collected under even conditions by either a 7 day food record or a diet history interview may be collapsed and analysed independent of the underlying diet method. Both diet methods, however, appear to underestimate energy intake dependent on age and BMI.

Relative validity of a food frequency questionnaire used in the Inter99 study

“…Although it has been recommended to use 7-days' food records as the 'gold standard' when investigating the relative validity of a FFQ (Willett, 1998), the diet history and 7-days' food record have interchangeably served as 'gold standards' in practice (Willett et al, 1985;Block et al, 1990;Jain et al, 1996;Hoidrup et al, 2002) and both Black et al (2000) and Hoidrup et al (2002) have illustrated a close quantitative agreement between the two methods, and the difference between the methods in assessing energy and macronutrient intake seems to be negligible. Because of logistic problems associated with the diet record methods the diet history was chosen in the present study.…”

Do Energy Density and Dietary Fiber Influence Subsequent 5‐Year Weight Changes in Adult Men and Women?

“…However, in a previous study, reproducibility of the 7-day food record for dietary habits regarding macronutrients was evaluated and found to be high (19). On the other hand, under-reporting of dietary energy intake was also found to be related to the degree of obesity (20,21). However, if, in fact, the obese under-reported total energy intake more so than the lean and overweight participants in the present study, and if under-reporting is related to their BW, the observed associations found among the obese would be conservative, rather than overestimated, suggesting that our results among the obese men and women are, at best, conservative.…”

Assessment of habitual meal pattern and intake of foods, energy and nutrients in Swedish adolescent girls: comparison of diet history with 7-day record

“…Validation studies including DLW measurements during the last decade have demonstrated that dietary methods are often biased towards underestimation of intake in adolescents (Livingstone & Robson, 2000) as well as adults (Livingstone & Black, 2003). Several studies have shown that the recording method was biased towards under-reporting of intake (Livingstone et al, 1992;Bratteby et al, 1998), especially in subjects with high BMI (Bandini et al, 1990;Price et al, 1997;Høidrup et al, 2002). Lower EI/BMR have been shown for registration methods than for DH in studies on children and adolescents (Livingstone & Robson, 2000).…”