Awareness of personal height and weight among community-dwelling people in West New Britain Province, Papua New Guinea

How tall am I again? A longitudinal analysis of the reliability of self-reported height

Self-reported height measures are increasingly being included in large-scale surveys in order to measure BMI. There have been concerns about the validity of self-reported measures but there remains little understanding of why respondents may not give accurate height reports. We examine whether a lack of knowledge could be a contributing factor, by investigating the reliability of self-reported height over time and across countries. We use longitudinal data from four large-scale longitudinal surveys conducted in Australia, United States, United Kingdom, and Europe (14 countries) where survey respondents were asked to report their height over multiple time periods to measure the extent of consistency of height reports across time. The overall level of inconsistent reporting of height is largest in Australia and Europe. Individuals with lower levels of education were significantly more likely to give two height reports that differed by 5 cm or more. Across all countries, inconsistent reporting with large height differences between waves was also more common among those in older populations. The findings point to subgroups of the population exhibiting a lack of knowledge regarding their own height.

Gender difference in body mass index in West New Britain Province, Papua New Guinea: A sub-analysis of a cross-sectional questionnaire study

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Globally, more women are likely to be obese than men, and the need for a gender-specific strategy concerning related health issues is important. Our study aimed to clarify gender difference related to obesity in Papua New Guinea by a sub-analysis of our previous questionnaire-based cross-sectional study. We used demographic and anthropometric data (body mass index) from a convenient sample of 558 community-dwelling healthy people (mean age 34.8 14.0 years, 48.2% women). To clarify gender differences, we conducted an unpaired t-test and Chi-square test between males and females. Obesity was twice as common in females than males (20.5% vs. 10.4%) and over half of the women had abnormal body mass index (51.3% vs. 39.1%) compared to their male counterparts.