Comparison of food consumption and nutrient intake assessed with three dietary assessment methods: results of the German National Nutrition Survey II

PURPOSE: Comparison of food consumption, nutrient intake and underreporting of diet history interviews, 24-h recalls and weighed food records to gain further insight into specific strength and limitations of each method and to support the choice of the adequate dietary assessment method. METHODS: For 677 participants (14–80 years) of the German National Nutrition Survey II confidence intervals for food consumption and nutrient intake were calculated on basis of bootstrapping samples, Cohen’s d for the relevance of differences, and intraclass correlation coefficients for the degree of agreement of dietary assessment methods. Low energy reporters were identified with Goldberg cut-offs. RESULTS: In 7 of 18 food groups diet history interviews showed higher consumption means than 24-h recalls and weighed food records. Especially mean values of food groups perceived as socially desirable, such as fruit and vegetables, were highest for diet history interviews. For “raw” and “cooked vegetables”, the diet history interviews showed a mean consumption of 144 and 109 g/day in comparison with 68 and 70 g/day in 24-h recalls and 76 and 75 g/day in weighed food records, respectively. For “fruit”, diet history interviews showed a mean consumption of 256 g/day in comparison with 164 g/day in 24-h recalls and 147 g/day in weighed food records. No major differences regarding underreporting of energy intake were found between dietary assessment methods. CONCLUSIONS: With regard to estimating food consumption and nutrient intake, 24-h recalls and weighed food records showed smaller differences and better agreement than pairwise comparisons with diet history interviews.