Comparing Self-Reported Dietary Intake to Provided Diet during a Randomized Controlled Feeding Intervention: A Pilot Study

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

After reading the manuscript, I believe that it is missing very important information. Only the content of protein, fat and carbohydrates in the diets used was taken into account, and it is known that 50% of the fat was saturated acids. Meanwhile, the composition of other fatty acids and the content of individual vitamins and minerals are very important, but there is no information about this. Such information is necessary to draw appropriate conclusions. Conducting a discussion based on the content of basic nutrients, moreover after conducting only a few interviews in 24 hours, is in my opinion completely unreliable. However, the biggest problem in the study is the small number of participants, only 12 males (7 HC, 5 HF) and 12 females (6 HC, 6 HF). This is definitely too little to consider the study conducted as reliable and the results of the statistical evaluation as representative. In my opinion, this article does not bring anything new to the field described and has many imperfections (described above) and therefore I do not recommend it for publication in Dietetics.

In addition, other shortcomings were noticed:

1. There are no explanations of all abbreviations under the figures.

2. References prepared not in accordance with the guidelines.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you for allowing me to review your article. 

The topic analysed is interesting although the data used are old and the sample used very small and unrepresentative. It should be justified why the data were not published earlier, and why.

In methodology you explain that you ask participants to return any food that was not consumed but later indicate that you could not take into account the food that was not consumed. This should be clarified.

The discussion of the article should be improved by elaborating on the reasons that may lead to the differences found. And especially taking into account that the main differences are due to the use of foods modified in their fat content.

English language is fine.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The comparison of dietary recall and actual measurements of food intake is a worthy undertaking.  The addition of looking at recall of several different diets is also interesting and of considerable merit.

I have 2 issues, however, that should be addressed.  It is well known that body weight contributes to the accuracy of dietary recall  see:

Wehling H, Lusher J. People with a body mass index ⩾30 under-report their dietary intake: A systematic review. Journal of Health Psychology. 2019;24(14):2042-2059. doi:10.1177/1359105317714318 

for a good review of the topic. 

Given that the subject pool in the study (BMI from 18.3 - 26.2  spans three standard categories of BMI according to the CDC:

• under 18.5 – underweight
• between 18.5 and 24.9 – healthy range
• between 25 and 29.9 –  overweight

And Meng X, Kerr DA, Zhu K, et al. (2013) Under-reporting of energy intake in elderly Australian women is associated with a higher body mass index. Journal of Nutrition, Health & Aging 17(2): 112–118. Crossref. PubMed. have shown that there are significant decreases in dietary recall accuracy in those with BMI >25 compared to those with lower BMIs.

The analysis of this study should be repeated with BMI as one of the variables.

The second issue is similar but would not require a separate analysis.  

Was there screening for binge eating disorder especially or other psychosocial influences (e.g. social desirability, extraversion or disinhibition) as these factors as well as depression have been shown to lead to different accuracies with dietary recall  (see: Bartholome LT, Peterson RE, Raatz SK, et al. (2013) A comparison of the accuracy of self-reported intake with measured intake of a laboratory overeating episode in overweight and obese women with and without binge eating disorder. European Journal of Nutrition 52(1): 193–202.

Both the possible influences of BMI and binge eating disorder should be addressed in the introduction.

If screening was done for binge eating disorder or psychosocial factors it should be noted in the methods.  If not then the absence of this screening should be noted as a limitation of the study in the discussion.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

After reading the revised manuscript, I believe that the authors have significantly improved it. Since the major drawback of this study is the small number of participants, i.e. only 12 males and 12 females, I still believe that it is definitely too few to consider the conducted study as reliable and the results of the statistical evaluation as representative. In my opinion, the article in its current form can only be published if the study is treated as preliminary/pilot, which will be emphasized in the manuscript and title.

Author Response

Thank you for the comment on our improvement of the manuscript. We agree that our manuscript is a pilot study that will provide preliminary data for our group and others. Therefore, in response to your comment, we made the following adjustments:

1. Altered the title to: Comparing Self-reported Dietary Intake to Provided Diet During a Randomized Controlled Feeding Intervention: A Pilot Study.
2. Added the term "pilot" to describe the study (e.g., line 18, 69, 71, and 74).
3. Discussed how the results provided preliminary data for future studies in the conclusion (e.g., lines 303 and 306).

Thank you for your additional suggestions.