Table 2.

Overview of methods used to account for plausibility of rEI.

Methods used to account for plausibility of rEI	Description of approach	Strengths	Limitations
Excluding participants who report EIs at the low and high end of a range from the analysis	A commonly used method is to exclude participants who report consuming fewer than 500 and greater than 3,500 cal per day	Provides a consistent protocol when the dietary-report instrument does not allow use of the computational energy cutoff methods	Crude method that is not individualized May not identify all implausible reports of EI
Goldberg CUT-OFF 2 (11)	Based on number of days of self-report, coefficients of variation for EI, estimated BMR, PAL, and sample size	Individualized method of assessing plausibility of rEI	Error in assigning PAL is not accounted for Only identifies extremely inaccurate reporting
Method introduced by McCrory et al. (12) and updated by Huang et al. (3)	Cutoffs for rEI are calculated as a percentage of pER specific to sex and age per the DRI categories and weight status	Takes into account the within-subject errors in TEE and rEI, including measurement error and normal day to day variation Simple and individualized approach to assessing plausibility of rEI	Using Huang et al.’s updated method (3), the error in assigning PAL if calculating EER is not considered
Calculation of the ratio of rEI:pER and statistical adjustment using this value	rEI:pER included as a confounding factor in a statistical model	Sample size remains intact Can reduce measurement error because errors in intakes tend to be highly correlated and partly cancel each other with adjustment for energy intake	Assumes that the macronutrients are underreported proportionately

rEI, reported energy intake; EI, energy intake; BMR, basal metabolic rate; PAL, physical activity level; pER, predicted energy requirement; DRI, dietary reference intake; TEE, total energy expenditure; EER, estimated energy requirement.