Traditional Self-Reported Dietary Instruments Are Prone to Inaccuracies and New Approaches Are Needed.
Level 5 - mechanism / opinion, no new human data
Narrative review summarizing published dietary assessment literature without systematic search or meta-analytic pooling
PubMed 32719809 · doi:10.3389/fnut.2020.00090
What was done
Narrative review summarizing published literature on systematic misreporting errors in traditional self-reported dietary assessment tools (diet recalls, food diaries, and food frequency questionnaires) compared against quantitative nutrient biomarkers, alongside recent efforts to correct these errors.
What was found
The abstract reports no numerical data. The reviewed evidence shows consistent systematic underreporting of energy intake across adults and children. Energy underreporting increases with higher body mass index. Macronutrient misreporting is differential, with protein being the least underreported, though specific underreported food types remain undetermined.
Why it matters
Because underreporting of energy intake varies systematically by body mass index, self-reported intake introduces systematic bias into obesity research and attenuates observed diet-disease associations.
Limits
The abstract reports no quantitative values or statistical effect sizes. As a narrative review, it omits formal search strings, inclusion counts, and systematic bias assessments. Specific underreported foods remain unknown, and correction methods yield only incremental progress.
Cited by
- context Scientific studies consistently show that people underreport their calorie intake by 30% to 50%.