Comparison of two dietary assessment methods by food consumption: results of the German National Nutrition Survey II.
OBJECTIVE
To further characterise the performance of the diet history method and the 24-h recalls method, both in an updated version, a comparison was conducted.


METHODS
The National Nutrition Survey II, representative for Germany, assessed food consumption with both methods. The comparison was conducted in a sample of 9,968 participants aged 14-80. Besides calculating mean differences, statistical agreement measurements encompass Spearman and intraclass correlation coefficients, ranking participants in quartiles and the Bland-Altman method.


RESULTS
Mean consumption of 12 out of 18 food groups was higher assessed with the diet history method. Three of these 12 food groups had a medium to large effect size (e.g., raw vegetables) and seven showed at least a small strength while there was basically no difference for coffee/tea or ice cream. Intraclass correlations were strong only for beverages (>0.50) and revealed the least correlation for vegetables (<0.20). Quartile classification of participants exhibited more than two-thirds being ranked in the same or adjacent quartile assessed by both methods. For every food group, Bland-Altman plots showed that the agreement of both methods weakened with increasing consumption.


CONCLUSIONS
The cognitive effort essential for the diet history method to remember consumption of the past 4 weeks may be a source of inaccurateness, especially for inhomogeneous food groups. Additionally, social desirability gains significance. There is no assessment method without errors and attention to specific food groups is a critical issue with every method. Altogether, the 24-h recalls method applied in the presented study, offers advantages approximating food consumption as compared to the diet history method.
Department of Nutritional Behaviour, Max Rubner-Institut, Federal Research Institute of Nutrition and Food, Haid-und-Neu-Str. 9, 76131, Karlsruhe, Germany, marianne.eisinger-watzl@mri.bund.de.
Marianne
M
Eisinger-Watzl
Andrea
A
Straßburg
Josa
J
Ramünke
Carolin
C
Krems
Thorsten
T
Heuer
Ingrid
I
Hoffmann
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D015992:Body Mass Index; D004032:Diet; D015930:Diet Records; D005247:Feeding Behavior; D005260:Female; D005858:Germany; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall; D008875:Middle Aged; D015596:Nutrition Assessment; D009749:Nutrition Surveys; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D055815:Young Adult