PONE-D-19-18018

The association of weight status and weight perception with number of confidants in adolescents

PLOS ONE

Dear Prof. Sasaki,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

The reviewers addressed several major and minor concerns about your manuscript. Please revise your manuscript carefully.

We would appreciate receiving your revised manuscript by Oct 13 2019 11:59PM. When you are ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Kenji Hashimoto, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at

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2. You indicated that you had ethical approval for your study. In your Methods section, please ensure you have also stated whether you obtained consent from parents or guardians of the minors included in the study or whether the research ethics committee or IRB specifically waived the need for their consent.

3. Please include additional information regarding the survey or questionnaire used in the study and ensure that you have provided sufficient details that others could replicate the analyses. For instance, if you developed a questionnaire as part of this study and it is not under a copyright more restrictive than CC-BY, please include a copy, in both the original language and English, as Supporting Information.

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: No

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: The manuscript entitled “The association of weight status and weight perception with number of confidants in adolescents” presents interesting data, however manuscript can not be published because inadequate methodology has been applied.

Authors presented BMI cut-off by WHO, however this values are applicable only for adult population. For children growth reference charts must be applied – e.g. WHO recommendations for children under 18 years old. If in Japan national charts exist, it is an even better situation because of a better fitting for the Japanese adolescent population. Therefore the national growth reference charts should be applied.

Moreover, Authors should present the number of ethics committee's approval.

Authors also should complete the information about the statistical tests that have been applied. How did Authors verify the normality of data distribution? What tests did they used?

In my opinion, anthropometric measurements should be made. Especially, taking into account that another authors indicate that more than half middle- and high-school students, did not correctly perceive their own body weight (Yan et al. 2018. Body Weight Misperception and Its Association with Unhealthy Eating Behaviors among Adolescents in China. IJERPH.). In such situation, the own perception of body mass can not be perceived as a valid measurement.

Reviewer #2: 1. Please include explanation on why WS and WP were both used in the study in the Introduction Section.

2. Please state the sampling method used in the Methodology Section.

3. Please justify the division of weight category into low-normal weight, mid-normal weight, and high-normal weight (Line 132).

4. Please state the Operational Definition of 'WS, WP and Confidants' in the Methodology.

5. Since this study involved adolescents grade 7-12 (junior and high schools), was there any difference in terms of WS, WP and confidants numbers between age groups or school levels? Please elaborate more on age factor in the discussion.

Reviewer #3: Thank you for the opportunity to review this interesting study on the association between non-normal weight status or weight perception and the number of confidants in adolescents. The manuscript addresses a relevant and important topic for the study of the health of adolescents.

Abstract:

I suggest including design of study in abstract.

Introduction:

1. The introduction is adequate, however I suggest excluding this sentence “Analyses of the associations are stratified by sex and further adjusted for age, experience of being bullied, and depressive and anxiety symptoms.”

Methods

1. Was there sample calculation? Please make it clear.

2. Why the authors decided to use Cole et al (2000 and 2007) as the reference of BMI cut-off? These BMI cut-off values are adequate to evaluate anthropometric status in children and adolescents, but have as limitations to use the same cut-offs for men and women.

3. Were the tools validated for adolescents? Could you indicate the alpha data? Please complete this.

Results:

1. I suggest avoiding the use of single-sentence paragraphs, for instance “The largest proportion of students (boys: 41.7%, girls: 40.1%) fell into the mid-normal weight group (Table 1).”

2. I suggest writing this sentence “The prevalence of being underweight 177 was 8.7% in boys and 12.7% in girls, while being overweight was 14.2% in boys and 7.5% in girls. WP for boys had a normal distribution, while the distribution of girls was skewed toward the perception of being fat.” before table 1.

Discussion:

1. In the first paragraph include for boys the association found between to be a bit fat and to have few confidants among adolescents.

2. I suggest improving the discussion for the result presented on pages 16 and 17, lines 231 to 236, about the association found between feeling a bit fat and to have few confidants among boys.

Conclusion:

Conclusions are adequate.

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6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files to be viewed.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email us at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

PONE-D-19-18018R1

The association of weight status and weight perception with number of confidants in adolescents

PLOS ONE

Dear Prof. Sasaki,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Two reviewers addressed several minor concerns about your revised manuscript. Please revise your manuscript again.

We would appreciate receiving your revised manuscript by Dec 14 2019 11:59PM. When you are ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter.

To enhance the reproducibility of your results, we recommend that if applicable you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io, where a protocol can be assigned its own identifier (DOI) such that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). This letter should be uploaded as separate file and labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. This file should be uploaded as separate file and labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. This file should be uploaded as separate file and labeled 'Manuscript'.

Please note while forming your response, if your article is accepted, you may have the opportunity to make the peer review history publicly available. The record will include editor decision letters (with reviews) and your responses to reviewer comments. If eligible, we will contact you to opt in or out.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Kenji Hashimoto, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #3: All comments have been addressed

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: Authors need to verify the data distribution and must use the appropriate statistical tests. Using other tests can change the Results, and thus the Discussion and Conclusion. How did Authors verify the normal distribution of data? What tests they used? Authors should complete this information.

Reviewer #2: Thank you for responding accordingly to each comment. All of them have been addressed well. Congratulations on your rigorous analysis.

Reviewer #3: Thanks for answering all the questions, however, one question in the introduction section and two in the method still require minor adjustments as the following.

Introduction:

Although the authors agree to remove the sentence “Analyses of the associations are stratified by sex and further adjusted for age, experience of being bullied, and depressive and anxiety symptoms.” of the Introduction and report deleting it, it still remains in the manuscript in the page 5, lines 95 and 96.

Methods

1. I suggest removing the sampling process of the Results Section and including it in the Methodology Section

2. I apologize because I didn’t give the correct information. Was the General Health Questionnaire validated for adolescents? Could you indicate the alpha data? Please complete this.

Regards

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files to be viewed.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email us at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

The association of weight status and weight perception with number of confidants in adolescents

PONE-D-19-18018R2

Dear Dr. Sasaki,

We are pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it complies with all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you will receive an e-mail containing information on the amendments required prior to publication. When all required modifications have been addressed, you will receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will proceed to our production department and be scheduled for publication.

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With kind regards,

Kenji Hashimoto, PhD

Section Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments: