Accuracy of reported weight and menstrual status in teenage girls with eating disorders.

OBJECTIVE

The current study investigated the accuracy of reported current and historical weights and of menstrual status in teenage girls with eating disorders.

METHOD: Reported current weight in one interview was compared with measured weight at another occasion. Reported historical weights were compared with documented weights from growth charts of the school health services. Reports of menstrual status from two different interviews were compared.

RESULTS

The overall correlation between reported and measured/documented weight was high. Current weight was reported with high accuracy in all diagnostic groups and without tendencies to underreport. Patients with bulimia nervosa, but not those with anorexia nervosa, underreported their historical top weight. The most common reason for large discrepancies between reported and documented historical weights was that the two weights compared referred to different time points. The reports on menstrual status were divergent for 13% of the patients, most notably 4 of 15 patients on oral contraceptives had been categorized as having menstruations in one of the interviews.

CONCLUSION

Reported weight history and menstrual status are of high accuracy in teenage girls with eating disorders.