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Epidemiology

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

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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.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) (Grant No. R01HL103737, Principal Investigator—SD Baxter). The NIH and the NHLBI had no role in the design, analysis or writing of this article. The content of this article is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not represent the official views of the NIH, the NHLBI, the South Carolina Department of Education, the South Carolina Department of Social Services or the South Carolina Revenue and Fiscal Affairs Office. These results were presented, in part, at the Ninth International Conference on Diet and Activity Methods (Brisbane, QLD, Australia); partial support for AF Smith’s travel was provided by a Graduate Faculty Travel Award from Cleveland State University. We thank the staff of the participating schools and districts for permitting data collection; Megan P Puryear, MS, RD, LD, Alyssa L Smith, MPH, and Kathleen L Collins, BS, for data collection; Kate K Vaadi, RD, LD, for data collection and scheduling assistance; and Christina M Devlin, RD, LD, for scheduling assistance.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Cleveland State University, Cleveland, OH, USA

    A F Smith

  2. Institute for Families in Society, College of Social Work, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA

    S D Baxter, C J Finney, J A Royer & C H Guinn

  3. Department of Statistics, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA

    D B Hitchcock

  4. South Carolina Revenue and Fiscal Affairs Office, Health and Demographics Section, Columbia, SC, USA

    C J Finney & J A Royer

Authors
  1. A F Smith
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  2. S D Baxter
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  3. D B Hitchcock
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  4. C J Finney
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  5. J A Royer
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  6. C H Guinn
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Correspondence to A F Smith.

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Smith, A., Baxter, S., Hitchcock, D. et al. Cognitive ability, social desirability, body mass index and socioeconomic status as correlates of fourth-grade children’s dietary-reporting accuracy. Eur J Clin Nutr 70, 1028–1033 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/ejcn.2016.43

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