Abstract
Understanding food choice is critical to be able to address the rise in obesity rates around the globe. In this paper, we examine the relationship between measured (BMI, using self-reported height and weight) and perceived weight status with the number of calories ordered in a controlled online food choice exercise. A total of 1044 participants completed an online food choice exercise in which they selected ingredients for a sandwich from five categories: meat/protein, cheese, spread/dressing, bread, and vegetables. We examine the number of calories ordered by participants and use linear regression to study the relationship of BMI category relative to self-reported perceived weight status with calories ordered. As a comparison to previous literature, we also examine the relationship between relative weight status and self-reported dieting behavior using logistic regression. We find that participants perceiving themselves to have a higher BMI than their BMI calculated using height and weight ordered significantly fewer calories and were more likely to report dieting than participants who perceived themselves to have a lower BMI than their calculated BMI. The relationship between perceived weight status and measured weight status explains behavior in a food choice task. Understanding how people perceive their weight may help design effective health messages.
Highlights
While the studies mentioned above have documented a relationship between perceived weight status and self-reported habitual behaviors, such as exercising or dieting, we have been unable to find any studies examining the relationship between perceptions of weight status and direct measures of behavior, such as individual food choice, in a controlled choice setting. We address this gap in the literature by examining the relationship between differences between perceived body weight status and body weight status calculated from self-reported weight and height and the number of calories ordered in a food choice task
The novel contribution of our study is that we find evidence of differences in observed behavior in the food choice task
Participants who overestimated their weight status ordered significantly fewer calories than individuals who underestimated their weight status—a reduction amounting to nearly 13 percent of the mean number of calories ordered per sandwich in the research in the subsample of normal and overweight individuals
Summary
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. A study conducted with high school students found that a significant number of overweight students perceived themselves to have a lower BMI than what was obtained using either self-reported or objectively measured height and weight values [21]. These discrepancies present further public health risks since individuals’ weight status perceptions influence their weight management decisions. Multiple studies have found that individuals’ weight perceptions are related to habitual weight management attempts, such as dieting or exercise [14,15,16] This means that overweight individuals who perceive themselves to be normal weight may be less likely to undertake a weight loss/maintenance program. This analysis provides a novel examination of food choice behavior by people with different perceptions of their weight status in a controlled environment, while corroborating previous studies’ findings that perceived weight status is important in explaining self-reported health behaviors
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