Dietary Assessment Tools

Fueling your body for activity, weight loss, weight gain, or for optimal health requires attention to detail. If you want to avoid deficiencies or excess of too much micro or macro nutrients, assessment tools can help. Learn how the quality and quantity of your daily intake matches Recommended Daily Allowances. Get tips on how you can improve. Meet your energy needs for your active lifestyle. Your nutritional status is only as good as your knowledge of how your next food choice fits into your dietary needs. Assessment tools can provide the feedback you need to make the most of your daily choices.

Types

• Daily diary entries that enhance your awareness of the types and amounts of foods you eat are simple assessment tools.

  Dietary assessment tools can be as simple as keeping a daily food journal. They can be as detailed as comparing your computer-entered intake to the Recommended Daily Allowances and learning how you might be affected by deficiencies or excesses and what to do about it. Ninety-eight percent of National Weight Control Registry participants--that is, people who lost 30 pounds or more and kept it off more than one year--report having modified their intake to lose weight. Assessment tools reveal how you can make changes to meet your goals.

Benefits

• An accurate assessment of the amount and quality of food you eat allows you to make informed decisions.

  Americans tend to underestimate the amount of food that they eat. Your diet may improve simply by consciously tracking the amount and type of food you eat. You can determine the quantity and quality of your diet and whether it matches your activity demands and satisfies requirements for good health. The information can provide you with the basis for making changes. It can serve as a snapshot of how you're doing at the moment.

Features

• The basis of dietary nutrient assessment is research done on individual foods.

  Dietary assessment involves everything from food records or diaries, dietary recalls, dietary history and observed intakes, to chemical analysis of the duplicate collections of food consumed. The depth of information you want from your assessment, and how you plan to act on it, helps determine what assessment type you choose. The on-line assessment tool MyPyramid Tracker is a user-friendly, free way to get a nutrition check up. From there, you can determine how and if you take a next step. Seek the support of a Registered Dietitian or Nutritionist for further customized nutritional support.

Process

• Dietary assessment tools are just fingertips away.

  For recording your daily intake in a diary, start with your laptop or a notebook. New apps on your phone may be more in-line with your lifestyle. A minimum of a three-day recall is recommended to get a good idea of your typical habits and get insight into your average intake. Consider including information, such as the time of day, your level of hunger, the environment in which you ate, and how full you were following meals and snacks. Review the diary with a nutrition or fitness professional for coaching. For more in-depth analysis, enter your demographics and goals into a nutrition tracker, then enter your daily food intake information to get specific feedback about nutrients and the role they play. From the tracker you'll learn not only what you're doing and how to improve, but why it is important to you.