Validity of energy intake reports in relation to dietary patterns

The role of under- and overreporting of energy intake in determining the dietary patterns is yet unclear, especially in the Middle Eastern countries. This study identifies the prevalence of misreporting among Tehranian women aged 18-45 years and to compare the dietary intake patterns of plausible and all energy reporters. Dietary intakes and anthropometric data were collected. FitMate metabolic analyzer and Goldberg equation were used in determining the under/overreporting of energy intake. Underreporters were more likely to be overweight and older compared to plausible reporters. Three dietary patterns emerged for all reporters, and two were identified for plausible reporters. Using only plausible reporters to determine dietary patterns was not similar to using all reporters. The proportion of underreporters was 59.3% in the mixture cluster, 30.4% in the unhealthy cluster, and 35.3% in the healthy cluster (p < 0.05). Underreporting of energy intake is not uniformly distributed among dietary pattern clusters and tends to be less severe among subjects in the unhealthy cluster. Our data suggested that misreporting of energy intake might affect the dietary pattern analysis.