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Comparison of two dietary assessment methods by food consumption: results of the German National Nutrition Survey II

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Abstract

Purpose

To further characterise the performance of the diet history method and the 24-h recalls method, both in an updated version, a comparison was conducted.

Methods

The National Nutrition Survey II, representative for Germany, assessed food consumption with both methods. The comparison was conducted in a sample of 9,968 participants aged 14–80. Besides calculating mean differences, statistical agreement measurements encompass Spearman and intraclass correlation coefficients, ranking participants in quartiles and the Bland–Altman method.

Results

Mean consumption of 12 out of 18 food groups was higher assessed with the diet history method. Three of these 12 food groups had a medium to large effect size (e.g. raw vegetables) and seven showed at least a small strength while there was basically no difference for coffee/tea or ice cream. Intraclass correlations were strong only for beverages (>0.50) and revealed the least correlation for vegetables (<0.20). Quartile classification of participants exhibited more than two-thirds being ranked in the same or adjacent quartile assessed by both methods. For every food group, Bland–Altman plots showed that the agreement of both methods weakened with increasing consumption.

Conclusions

The cognitive effort essential for the diet history method to remember consumption of the past 4 weeks may be a source of inaccurateness, especially for inhomogeneous food groups. Additionally, social desirability gains significance. There is no assessment method without errors and attention to specific food groups is a critical issue with every method. Altogether, the 24-h recalls method applied in the presented study, offers advantages approximating food consumption as compared to the diet history method.

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Acknowledgments

Heiner Boeing und Sven Knüppel (German Institute of Human Nutrition, Dept. Epidemiology, Potsdam-Rehbrücke) were counsellors for the application of the Multiple Source Method. Franziska Lindner (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Dept. Mathematics, Karlsruhe) and Alexander Roth (Max Rubner-Institut, Dept. Physiology and Biochemistry of Nutrition, Karlsruhe) were consultants for methods of analysis. The original survey (NVS II) was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection (BMELV).

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On behalf of all authors, the corresponding author states that there is no conflict of interest.

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  1. Department of Nutritional Behaviour, Max Rubner-Institut, Federal Research Institute of Nutrition and Food, Haid-und-Neu-Str. 9, 76131, Karlsruhe, Germany

    Marianne Eisinger-Watzl, Andrea Straßburg, Josa Ramünke, Carolin Krems, Thorsten Heuer & Ingrid Hoffmann

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  1. Marianne Eisinger-Watzl
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Correspondence to Marianne Eisinger-Watzl.

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Eisinger-Watzl, M., Straßburg, A., Ramünke, J. et al. Comparison of two dietary assessment methods by food consumption: results of the German National Nutrition Survey II. Eur J Nutr 54, 343–354 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00394-014-0714-z

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