Temporal trends in misclassification patterns of measured and self-report based body mass index categories - findings from three population surveys in Ireland

BMC Public Health

Research Article

Jennifer Lutomski¹  Ivan J Perry¹  Janas Harrington¹  Frances Shiely²  Kevin Hayes³  Hannah McGee⁴  C Cecily Kelleher⁵ 

[1] Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College Cork, Brookfield Health Sciences Complex, College Road, Cork, Ireland;Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College Cork, Brookfield Health Sciences Complex, College Road, Cork, Ireland;Department of Global Health, University of Washington, Harborview Medical Center, Seattle, USA;Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland;Population Health Sciences (Psychology), Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, 123 St. Stephen's Green, Dublin 2, Ireland;School of Public Health, Physiotherapy and Population Science, University College Dublin, Woodview House, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland;

关键词: Body Mass Index;    Obesity;    Body Mass Index Category;    Measurement Bias;    Body Mass Index Group;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2458-10-560

 received in 2009-11-26, accepted in 2010-09-17,  发布年份 2010

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundAs the use of self-reported data to classify obesity continues, the temporal change in the accuracy of self-report measurement when compared to clinical measurement remains unclear. The objective of this study was to examine temporal trends in misclassification patterns, as well as sensitivity and specificity, of clinically measured versus self-report based body mass index (BMI) from three national lifestyle surveys over a 10-year period.MethodsThe Surveys of Lifestyle Attitudes and Nutrition (SLÁN) were interview based cross-sectional survey/measurements involving nationally representative samples in 1998, 2002 and 2007. Data from a subsample of both self-reported and measured height and weight were available from 66 men and 142 women in 1998, 147 men and 184 women in 2002 and 909 men and 1128 women in 2007. Respondents were classified into the BMI categories normal (< 25 kg m-2), overweight (25- < 30 kg m-2) and obese (≥ 30 kg m-2).ResultsUnderreporting of BMI increased across the three surveys (14%→21%→24%; p = 0.002). Sensitivity scores for the normal category exceeded 94% in all three surveys but decreased for the overweight (75%→68%→66%) and obese categories (80%→64%→53%). Simultaneously, specificity levels remained high.ConclusionsBMI values based on self-reported determinations of height and weight in population samples are underestimating the true prevalence of the obesity epidemic and this underestimation is increasing with time. The decreased sensitivity and consistently high specificity scores in the obese category across time, highlights the limitation of self-report based BMI classifications and the need for simple, readily comprehensible indicators of obesity.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© Shiely et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2010