Reviewer's report
Title:Disparities Exist Between National Food Group Recommendations and the
Dietary Intakes of Women
Version: 2Date:21 July 2011
Reviewer: Malcolm Riley
Reviewer's report:
Thank you to the authors for considering and responding to my reviewer
comments so thoroughly.
As the authors state, every method of estimating dietary intake has inherent
limitations. That is accepted. It is also often the case that the measurement
instrument isn’t precisely want is required for a specific purpose (this often
happens with dietary surveys conducted using one day recall). However it is
important to discuss and consider in a study report the limitations of the
measurement methods when applied for the specific study purpose. I think the
manuscript is improved in this respect.
Minor Essential Revisions:
1. The following comment has been misinterpreted: ‘NRVs refer to a range of
values –
throughout the manuscript name the actual reference value intended rather
than the generic term.’ An NRV can be an Adequate Intake, an Estimated
Average Requirement, a Recommended Dietary Intake, etc – reference should
be made to the specific NRV intended (which I think is the AI/EAR). Reference to
‘the NRVs’ occurs in a few places in the manuscript.
2. The following comment may also have been misinterpreted (and I apologise
that the comments were unclear). ‘The method of converting the FFQ categories
into the AGHE categories should be given (a conversion table might be shown
unless each category had an unambiguous assignment).’ I was referring to the
fact that there is sometimes ambiguity about how to assign FFQ categories
directly into AGHE categories particularly when the categories are made up of
composite foods or foods have a place in two AGHE groups (eg ‘meat pies,
pasties, quiche and other savoury pastries’, or ‘Other beans (include chick peas,
lentils, etc)’ are two FFQ categories within a widely used Australian FFQ that
there might be considered to be some ambiguity about assigning to a AGHE
category). The use of AGHE food groups is a central part of the study and explicit
guidance about the FFQ responses were converted to AGHE categories seems
relevant. The serve size information in the footnote of Table 2 might fulfil this
function – but it is not clear whether these represent FFQ categories or AGHE
indicators of relative serve sizes. If these do represent the FFQ categories then
the clarification is simple by putting (FFQ categories) after the ‘Serve Size’
heading and amending the text on p7 to ‘The portion sizes for each FFQ
category used to calculate each food group serving size can be found in Table
2.’.
Discretionary Revision:
3. The amended phrase:
‘Despite past dietary recall being influenced by current intake [38], statistical
analyses have been designed to accommodate the constraints of using this
dietary
assessment tool to improve the validity of results.’ Begs the question ‘what
accommodations were made and what constraints are you referring to?’ I think
this should be omitted because the statistical analyses are justified when they
are described. Without wishing to be prescriptive, perhaps the section could be
re-phrased:
Past dietary recall is known to be influenced by current intake [38]. While the
inexact alignment of the dietary reference period with the definition of some of
the groups may explain some of the lack of difference between groups,...
Thank you for the opportunity to review this manuscript.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: No, the manuscript does not need to be seen by a
statistician.
Declaration of competing interests:
I worked for Dairy Australia – a dairy industry services organisation – from
2006-2010. I declare that I have no other competing interests.