You can be too thin (but not too tall): Social desirability bias in self-reports of weight and height.

Previous studies of survey data from the U.S. and other countries find that women tend to understate their body weight on average, while both men and women overstate their height on average.

From "overweight" to "about right": evidence of a generational shift in body weight norms.

In this article, we describe differences in the self-perception of weight status in the United States between the two most recent National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) periods (1988-1994 and 1999-2004), and test the hypothesis that secular increases in adult mean BMI, adult obesity, and childhood obesity contributed to changes over time in weight perceptions. We find that the probability of self-classifying as overweight is significantly lower on average in the more recent survey, for both women and men, controlling for objective weight status and other factors. Among women, the decline in the tendency to self-classify as overweight is concentrated in the 17-35 age range, and is more pronounced among women with normal BMI than those with overweight BMI.

The BIAS FREE Framework: a new analytical tool for global health research.

Objective: To test the applicability of the BIAS FREE Framework in African settings.

Participants: Researchers from the Tanzanian National Institute for Medical Research, university and community-based researchers from Tanzania, the Gambia and South Africa.

Setting: National Institute for Medical Research, Dar es Salaam--Tanzania.