To examine the associations of adiposity, dietary restraint and other personal characteristics with energy reporting quality.

Secondary analysis of 230 women and 158 men from the 1997/98 Ontario Food Survey.

Energy reporting quality was estimated by ratios of energy intake (EI) to both basal metabolic rate (BMR) and total energy expenditure (TEE). Multivariate regression analyses were conducted to examine energy reporting quality between two dietary recalls and in relation to body mass index (BMI) with adjustment for potential confounders. Energy reporting quality was explored across categories of age, BMI, income, education, dieting status and food insecurity through analysis of variance (ANOVA).

From the ANOVA, energy reporting quality was associated with BMI group, age category and weight loss for men and women, as well as with education among women (P < 0.05). The multivariate regression analyses indicated that energy reporting quality was positively associated with education and inversely associated with obesity and dieting. No associations were observed in relation to food insecurity or income (P>0.05). EI:BMR and EI:TEE on the first and second 24-hour recalls were positively related (P < 0.0001 for men and women). A higher proportion of variance in energy reporting quality was explained for women than for men (R2 = 0.19 and 0.14, respectively).

Studies of diet and adiposity are probably hindered to some extent by BMI-related variation in energy reporting quality. Methods to address this issue are urgently needed if population surveys will continue to serve as the primary source of dietary intake data.