Accuracy of Self-reported Height and Weight in low-income, Rural African American Children

Objective: To validate self-report anthropometric data in a sample of low-income, rural African American youth. Methods: Ninety-two youth, 10.16 ± 0.85 years of age, were recruited from one school in a rural area of the southeast U.S. Youth were asked to self-report height and weight prior to having their height and weight measurements recorded by trained researchers. Body Mass Index (BMI) was calculated and BMI percentile rank (BMIpct) were used to classify adolescents as non-overweight/obese or overweight/obesity. Differences between measured and self-reported values were assessed using paired t-tests, and differences between weight categories were examined with independent t-tests. Agreement between classification of overweight/obesity by self-report and measured values was assessed using Chi Square. Results: Self-report and measured weight, but not height, differed significantly with the self-reported weight value being 3.1 kg lower than the measured value. Neither height nor weight differed between methods for nonoverweight/obese youth. For overweight/obese youth, height values were similar but weight values differed between methods (p<0.001) with overweight/obese youth under-reporting their weight to a greater extent than nonoverweight/obese youth (-8.3 + 9.9 vs. -0.74 + 5.0; p<0.001). The prevalence of overweight/obesity from measured values was 31.5% compared to 30.4% from self-reported values. However, the sensitively was low (58.6%) because of overweight/obese youth’s inability to accurately self-report their weight. Conclusion: The use of self-reported heights and weights for deriving estimates of overweight/obesity rates in lower-income, rural African American youth was not supported by this study.