The objectives of this study were to verify the agreement between the self-reported weight, height and body mass index (BMI) measurements of older adults and to analyze the influence of nutritional status and socio-demographic variables on the error in those measurements. A total of 368 older subjects (284 women and 84 men), aged 60-85 years were evaluated. Weight and height were measured and the self-reported measurements were collected together with socio-demographic data obtained by a self-administered questionnaire. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, the Student's t test to compare means, analysis of variance (ANOVA) to compare the relationship between differences and nutritional status and the Kruskal-Wallis test to compare the relationship between differences and in age, educational background and socio-economic status. Analyses were performed using SPSS version 11.0 and the level of significance was set at p<0.05. Men tended to overestimate their own weight. Among women, significant differences were observed for all studied variables, with height being overestimated and weight and BMI being systematically underestimated. Prevalence rates of overweight among men and women differed significantly, being influenced by age and educational background among women, but only by age among men. An error of less than 2kg/m² in self-reported BMI was observed in 89.3% of the men and 80.9% of the women. Therefore, it was concluded that self-referred BMI presented high agreement for the nutritional assessment of male older adults, whereas among females the use of self-reported measurements underestimated the prevalence of overweight and obesity.
body mass index; self-reported measurements; older adults
