Evidence map›Paper›PMID 34579744›Full record

ArticleThe international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity2021

Studying dietary intake in daily life through multilevel two-part modelling: a novel analytical approach and its practical application.

Alea Ruf, Andreas B Neubauer, Ulrich Ebner-Priemer, Andreas Reif, Silke Matura

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Article in The international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers.

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0cells of the map it votes in
9citing papers in PubMed
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1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

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3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

9 citing papers in PubMed.

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  4. Associations between pain reactivity to worse sleep and health outcomes.The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences · 2026
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4 · The record

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5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

5 authors.

Alea RufDepartment of Psychiatry, Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, University Hospital, Goethe University, Heinrich-Hoffmann-Straße 10, 60528, Frankfurt am Main, Germany. alea.ruf@kgu.de.ORCID 0000-0001-6325-3249
Andreas B NeubauerDIPF | Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in Education, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
Ulrich Ebner-PriemerMental mHealth Lab, Institute of Sports and Sports Science, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Karlsruhe, Germany.
Andreas ReifDepartment of Psychiatry, Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, University Hospital, Goethe University, Heinrich-Hoffmann-Straße 10, 60528, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
Silke MaturaDepartment of Psychiatry, Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, University Hospital, Goethe University, Heinrich-Hoffmann-Straße 10, 60528, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

backgroundUnderstanding which factors influence dietary intake, particularly in daily life, is crucial given the impact diet has on physical as well as mental health. However, a factor might influence whether but not how much an individual eats and vice versa or a factor's importance may differ across these two facets. Distinguishing between these two facets, hence, studying dietary intake as a dual process is conceptually promising and not only allows further insights, but also solves a statistical issue. When assessing the association between a predictor (e.g. momentary affect) and subsequent dietary intake in daily life through ecological momentary assessment (EMA), the outcome variable (e.g. energy intake within a predefined time-interval) is semicontinuous. That is, one part is equal to zero (i.e. no dietary intake occurred) and the other contains right-skewed positive values (i.e. dietary intake occurred, but often only small amounts are consumed). However, linear multilevel modelling which is commonly used for EMA data to account for repeated measures within individuals cannot be applied to semicontinuous outcomes. A highly informative statistical approach for semicontinuous outcomes is multilevel two-part modelling which treats the outcome as generated by a dual process, combining a multilevel logistic/probit regression for zeros and a multilevel (generalized) linear regression for nonzero values.

methodsA multilevel two-part model combining a multilevel logistic regression to predict whether an individual eats and a multilevel gamma regression to predict how much is eaten, if an individual eats, is proposed. Its general implementation in R, a widely used and freely available statistical software, using the R-package brms is described. To illustrate its practical application, the analytical approach is applied exemplary to data from the Eat2beNICE-APPetite-study.

resultsResults highlight that the proposed multilevel two-part model reveals process-specific associations which cannot be detected through traditional multilevel modelling.

conclusionsThis paper is the first to introduce multilevel two-part modelling as a novel analytical approach to study dietary intake in daily life. Studying dietary intake through multilevel two-part modelling is conceptually as well as methodologically promising. Findings can be translated to tailored nutritional interventions targeting either the occurrence or the amount of dietary intake.

Indexed as

DietEnergy IntakeEatingEcological Momentary AssessmentHumansMultilevel AnalysisBrmsDietary intakeEcological momentary assessmentLongitudinalMultilevel two-part modellingRSemicontinuous

Identifiers

PMID34579744
PMCPMC8477527

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.