How to Assess Your Nutritional Health

Assessing your nutritional health is an effective way to keep track of whether or not you are eating the right types of food. Certain foods help to improve your nutritional health, while others detract from it. According to the Harvard University's School of Public Health, what you eat is one of the primary contributors to being healthy. As such, it is important for you to monitor your food intake to determine where you fall on the healthy scale.

Things You'll Need

• Journal
• Food nutritional chart

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Instructions

• 1

  Monitor what you eat and drink for one week. Record all of the foods and beverages you consume in a journal. Make sure to not leave anything out. An honest recording gives you the most effective insight into your own nutritional health. Pay attention to serving size, and be as specific as possible with regards to documenting how many grams of a particular nutrient you consumed.

• 2

  Compare the foods that you eat in a week to a food nutritional chart, such as a food pyramid. A food nutritional chart gives you information about essential vitamins, minerals and nutrients that your body needs, and how much of it to consume daily. It also allows you to compare quantities to see whether you are eating enough servings of a particular food group, such as meeting your daily fruit intake.

• 3

  Determine the areas your nutrition may be falling short. Look for food groups that you skipped during the week. See whether your portions are in proportion with what is recommended per food group. Calculate how much of a particular nutrient you got in a day. For instance, add up all of the foods containing carbohydrates to see how many carbs you ate. Doing this for different food groups will tell you whether you are having too much of one type of food, or not enough of another.

• 4

  Analyze the quality of the foods you are eating. For instance, white flour is not as nutritious as whole grains, and certain types of fats are healthier than others. See where you can make substitutions for healthier options. If you eat a lot of sandwiches during the week, switch to whole grain bread, or change over from regular pasta to whole wheat pasta.

• 5

  Brainstorm ways to make your food intake more balanced. If all you are missing out on are certain vitamins or minerals, consider taking supplements to fill in the gaps. A multivitamin may give you what you are lacking without having to change the way you eat.

• 6

  Think about how healthy you feel and monitor your energy levels. People who do not eat healthy may not feel healthy, either. If you have an iron deficiency, you may start to feel sluggish; or too many heavy foods can give you a stomachache. Pay attention to how your body feels after you eat particular foods to determine whether or not they are healthy choices for you.