Anthropometric Measurements and Body Silhouette of Women: Validity and Perception

doi:10.1016/S0002-8223(02)90381-0

Journal of the American Dietetic Association

Volume 102, Issue 12, December 2002, Pages 1779-1784

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0002-8223(02)90381-0 Get rights and content

Abstract

Objective To examine the validity of self-reported values for current anthropometric measurements and factors related to misreporting.

Design E3N, a prospective cohort study of cancer risk factors, conducted in France and part of the European Prospective Investigation on Cancer. E3N comprises 100,000 women, born between 1925 and 1950, followed with self-administered questionnaires sent every 18 to 24 months starting in 1990.

Subjects 152 women for the validation study of self-reported anthropometric measurements, and 91,815 women selected to evaluate factors affecting misreporting of body silhouette.

Statistical analysis Paired ttests, Pearson and Spearman correlations were applied to evaluate the validity of self-reported measures, and analysis of variance and logistic regression were used to assess the factors influencing misreporting of silhouette.

Results The correlation coefficients between self- and external measurements were high. All but sitting height (r=0.56) were more than 0.80, with weight and bust (nipples) measurement correlation coefficients attaining 0.94. The correlation between body mass index (BMI), measured by the technician and the self-reported silhouette, was 0.78. Small height was always associated with misclassification. Specific factors related to a more favorable perception of body silhouette were: being overweight, small height, younger age, and a lower level of education. These women were also more frequently unmarried, more physically active, and had a slender body shape during adolescence. Results denoting a less favorable perception of body shape were reversed.

Conclusion/Applications Self-reported measurements (made with or without help) are valid measures in epidemio-logical studies. Body silhouettes are simple and useful indicators of body mass index. However they should be interpreted with caution in certain instances, especially for overweight subjects. J Am Diet Assoc. 2002;102:1779-1784.

Section snippets

Materials and Methods

E3N is a prospective cohort study on cancer risk factors conducted in France and is part of the European Prospective Investigation on Cancer (EPIC) (23). E3N includes 100,000 women, born between 1925 and 1950, living in France and insured by a national health insurance plan (MGEN) that mostly covers teachers. The main objective of the study was to investigate relationships between diet and cancer and between hormonal treatments and cancer. The occurrence of cancer and of other diseases

Statistical Analysis

First, to validate our data set of anthropometric measurements, we used two statistics to compare measurements made by the 152 women with the ones made by the technicians: Student paired t test and Pearson correlation. The first statistic evaluated the likelihood of a constant bias of the women’s self-measurements by comparing both means. The second statistic evaluated the linearity of the relationship between self-measurements and technicians’ measurements (24). Body silhouettes were

Results

First we compared the validation sample with the whole cohort (results not presented). All 152 women in the validation study had volunteered to have a blood sample drawn for the biological sample bank in the Paris center. There was no difference observed in age. Their education had lasted longer and they had higher incomes (P<.001). They were more frequently single (P<.02).

Validation Study (152 subjects)

No significant differences were observed between self-reported and technician-measured mean values for weight, height, and BMI (Table 1). Significant differences (P<.05) were observed between self-reported and technician’s mean values for sitting height, hip, and bust (nipples) measurements. No difference exceeded 1.1 cm.

For all continuous variables (except for body silhouettes), the correlation coefficients between self-reported and technician measurements were between 0.56, for sitting height,

Self-Administered Questionnaire (91,815 subjects)

The respective mean BMIs (calculation based on the whole cohort) of each expected silhouette from the thinnest to the largest were 16.4, 18.7, 21.3, 24.1, 26.0, and 30.3 and 37.4 for the category “over 6” (only means for exact silhouette are shown). The value of each category was significantly different from that of other categories (P<.0001).

We studied the factors related to a woman’s misperception of her own silhouette. Overall, 93.1% of women had realistic perceptions of their silhouettes (

Discussion

Validation Study

The results of the validation study of self-reported anthropometric measurements were quite satisfactory, although a potential limitation is a lack of statistical power due to the limited number of subjects included. Nevertheless, the differences observed between the two measurements (self-reported or taken by technicians) were small and the correlation coefficients ranged from 0.8 to 0.9, except for that concerning the sitting height. No significant difference was shown for

Self-Administered Questionnaire (91,815 subjects)

The relatively low correlation coefficient obtained for the body silhouette in the results of the validation study prompted us to investigate which factors characterized a “higher” perception of a woman’s body image. We found that correlation coefficients between self-reported and technician measurements were higher for almost all continuous variables (height, weight, BMI) than for categorical variables. We investigated this relationship to assess whether weaker correlations could be explained

Applications/Conclusions

The results of our study indicate that responses to questions about anthropometric measurements provide information almost as accurate as if measurements had been done in a medical center. This represents an important gain of time and money concerning all cohort studies that base data collection on self-administered questionnaires. Body silhouettes are valuable proxy indicators for BMI, especially in situations in which weight and height values cannot be obtained. However, self-assessments

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Anthropometric Measurements and Body Silhouette of Women: Validity and Perception

Abstract

Section snippets

Materials and Methods

Statistical Analysis

Results

Validation Study (152 subjects)

Self-Administered Questionnaire (91,815 subjects)

Discussion

Self-Administered Questionnaire (91,815 subjects)

Applications/Conclusions

Addict Behav.

Am J Clin Nutr.

Addict Behav.

Addict Behav.

Am J Prev Med.

J Am Diet Assoc.

Public Health.

A meta-analysis of body mass index and risk of premenopausal breast cancer

Epidemiology.

Accuracy of current, 4-year and 28-year self-reported body weight in an elderly population

Am J Epidemiol.

Ability of young women to recall past body size and age at menarche

Obes Res.

Relationship between questionnaire data and medical records of height, weight and body mass index

Int J Obes Relat Metab Disord.

A prospective study of obesity and risk of coronary heart disease in women

N Engl J Med.

Accuracy of self-measurement of body fat distribution by waist, hip, and thigh circumferences

Nutr Cancer.

Validation study of self-reported measures of fat distribution

Int J Obes Relat Metab Disord.

Validity and reliability of self-reported stature and weight of US adolescents

Am J Human Biol.

The accuracy of reports of weightchildren’s recall of their parents’ weights 15 years earlier

Int J Obesity.

Interviewer variability in anthropometric measurements and estimates of body composition

Int J Epidemiol.