Comparing Self-Reported Dietary Intake to Provided Diet during a Randomized Controlled Feeding Intervention: A Pilot...

Area of Science:

• Nutrition science
• Dietary assessment
• Human nutrition

Background:

• Self-reported dietary intake is prone to systematic and random errors, potentially biasing nutritional estimates.
• Accurate dietary assessment is crucial for understanding health outcomes and developing effective interventions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe errors in self-reported dietary intake.
• To compare 24-hour dietary recalls with provided menu items in a controlled feeding study.

Main Methods:

• A parallel randomized block design feeding study with standard, high-fat, and high-carbohydrate diets.
• Participants (12 males, 12 females) completed 24-hour dietary recalls.
• The Nutrition Data System for Research quantified energy, macronutrients, and food group serving sizes for statistical analysis.

Main Results:

• Caloric intake was consistent between self-reported data and provided meals.
• Participants on high-fat diets underreported energy-adjusted dietary fat.
• Participants on high-carbohydrate diets underreported energy-adjusted dietary carbohydrates.
• Energy-adjusted protein intake was overreported across all dietary interventions, particularly beef and poultry.

Conclusions:

• Self-reported dietary intake contains significant under- and overreporting errors for specific macronutrients.
• Understanding these misreporting patterns is essential for developing strategies to mitigate errors in dietary assessment.
• Improved dietary assessment methods are needed for accurate nutritional research and public health guidance.