Challenging the role of social norms regarding body weight as an explanation for weight, height, and BMI misreporting biases: development and application of a new approach to examining misreporting and misclassification bias in surveys.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Cultural pressures to be thin and tall are postulated to cause people to misreport their body weight and height towards more socially normative (i.e., desirable) values, but a paucity of direct evidence supports this idea. We developed a novel non-linear approach to examining weight, height, and BMI misreporting biases and used this approach to examine the association between socially non-normative weight and misreporting biases in adults.

Methods

The Survey of Lifestyles, Attitudes, and Nutrition 2007 (SLÁN 2007), a nationally representative survey of the Republic of Ireland (N = 1942 analyzed) was used. Self-reported weight (height) was classified as under-reported by ≥ 2.0 kg (2.0 cm), over-reported by ≥ 2.0 kg (2.0 cm), or accurately reported within 2.0 kg (2.

SUBMITTER: Brestoff JR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3121629 | biostudies-literature | 2011 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature