We are not aware of any other previous studies suggesting an association between lower birth weight and higher sedentary time, although self reported leisure time activity may be reduced in those at the lower end of the birth weight spectrum [14].
In addition, although self reported current body weight was highly accurate, 21 self reported weight at age 18 might have introduced some misclassification.
Recent reviews have shown that self report has moderate correlation with electronic monitoring [ 8, 9], although self reported adherence levels are higher than adherence levels derived from MEMS [ 9].
Although self reported disease status has long been used as an epidemiological tool, there is an inherent risk of bias by omission (intentional or accidental) of actual care seeking behaviors.
However, data on suicidal ideation, suicide attempt and NSSI, although self reported, are not likely to be influenced by parental behaviour as it is would only be indirectly influenced by parental help-seeking.
The use of self-reported data from questionnaires could be a source of bias, although self-reports on smoking status have acceptable validity [30].
Although self-report study is widely used, it is difficult to avoid participant's subjective effects, such as exaggeration, concealment, bias, etc. [14].
Although self-report of medical conditions is well-validated in older adults (Bush et al. 1989) and vulnerable populations, (Hwang et al. 2016) this combined approach was taken to minimize underrepresentation of medical diagnoses for jail-based participants who are not aware of their medical conditions.
Although self-reports of wake-time, or activity and sleep monitors may provide evidence of waking, they do not denote the actual timing of saliva samples post-waking.
Although self-reports of private experiences are not verifiable by other observers, these introspective data provide a wealth of testable hypotheses.
Although self-report measures may be informative since participants may know their own experiences best, self-reports have several disadvantages.
