Nutrition and diet have a significant influence on human health. The practice of dietary assessment begins with collecting data on the foods and beverages consumed over a predetermined period. This data is then encoded and analyzed so that food composition charts can be used to calculate intakes of nutrients, energy, and other dietary components. A broad range of dietary assessment techniques is available to gather dietary information. These approaches include the 24-hour Dietary Recall Profile, the Food Frequency Questionnaire (FFQ), the Screeners Profile, the Food Record Profile, diet history, and the weighing Method.
The 24-hour Dietary Recall Profile measures dietary intake over a short period. Recalls and diaries are meant to capture daily or multi-day ingestion. The 24-hour dietary record aims to capture a full and detailed inventory of all meals, drinks, and, in some instances, supplements ingested by a person on a particular day. A typical multiple pass 24HR requires the participant to give progressively more specific information about each meal or beverage, its preparation technique, and other properties, including an estimate of the amount ingested. The multiple pass method has been verified in several low- and middle-income nations (Gibson et al., 2017). Enumerator-controlled 24HRs are preferred over self-administered 24HRs in low-income nations (Gibson et al., 2017). This is due to the fact that enumerator-administered 24HRs are rapid, responsive to cultural norms, and offer quantitative data on nutrients and foods. The data provided by 24HR may be used to evaluate dietary patterns, food groupings, or nutrient consumption. In order to analyze the nutrient contents, the information from the meal must be compared with the nutrient data included in a food composition database.
Data on individuals’ quantitative diets may be utilized to understand the normal cooking and preparation techniques employed in households and the brand names of products eaten within the households. In addition, if individual dietary level information is collected in relation to health, socioeconomic status, and education findings, then the data can be utilized to investigate the links between levels of income and dietary choices.
While 24HRs recall offers greater precision in assessing nutritional intake than Food Frequency Questionnaires (FFQ), they are collected sparsely on nationally representative data sets. Nevertheless, there is a growing interest and need for individual-level dietary data, especially in the context of nutrition changes and fast food system adjustments (Coates et al., 2017). For instance, the Global Dietary Database (GDD) offers data on the nutrient and food intakes of adults and children by age, gender, pregnancy status, rural and urban location, and degree of education.
The Food Frequency Questionnaire (FFQs) measures the frequency with which specific foods or food categories are consumed over a specified time period. The questionnaire consists of a meal list (often closed-ended) and a frequency part. Based on the aims of the research, data may be collected daily, weekly, monthly, or annually. In addition, FFQs may contain information regarding portion sizes and food consumption amounts. By incorporating portion size as a frequency component, the FFQs enable the computation of food consumption and nutritional intakes. FFQs may be derived from fundamental concepts or modified from current questionnaires (Dao et al., 2018). Developing the meal list in the first scenario requires significant choices and considerations.
In addition, it is sometimes recommended to compile an exhaustive list of meals and dietary categories to facilitate energy modifications. According to Dao et al. (2018), when certain nutrients or non-nutrients are restricted to a relatively limited range of foods, grouping foods into food categories may be utilized to capture the nutrients. However, dividing foods into tiny groups may result in underestimating intake, while putting foods into big groups may result in overestimating consumption. Due to the difficulty in reporting the cumulative frequency of a certain meal consumed alone or in mixed meals, food aggregation might further contribute to overcounting (Dao et al., 2018). Multiple 24-hour recalls, biomarkers, and dietary records are used to confirm FFQs. Since certain FFQ timings might span up to one year, special effort must be taken to verify that the measurement days collected by them or recalls correspond to the FFQ timeline. Although weighed food records are the primary validation method, they are not error-free. To confirm FFQ, a weighted food recording is more accurate and exact than a 24-hour recall.
Depending on children’s age and development level, they may find it difficult to complete food frequency surveys. Youngsters have constrained concepts of time and memories that are not completely composed. Therefore, meal frequency questionnaires that inquire about a lengthy period are challenging (Dao et al., 2018). When using these surveys, shorter periods with significant start and finish dates that serve as memory triggers may be advantageous. Nevertheless, even with shorter periods, kids may not have the advanced cognitive skills necessary to accurately accomplish frequency questionnaires, such as recalling the latest food intake. In addition, children may not comprehend the composite foods utilized in such questions. The duration of certain frequency questions may contribute to boredom and exhaustion among children, resulting in low compliance. Moreover, using portion sizes that are not matched to children may result in an overestimation of consumption when portion amounts are requested.
Food records are designed to be filled by research participants for a defined time at the moment of intake. Consecutive or non-consecutive days may be used to register meals and drinks, their amounts, and how they were prepared; however, three to seven consecutive days is the documentation period most often used to estimate average consumption (Dao et al., 2018). The information might be collected on paper or using computerized automated technologies. Generally, when individuals record their consumption on paper, they do it in an open format with no predefined options.
Electronic systems, like those built as smartphone applications, may feature a closed structure in which the individuals select from a list of meals and drinks and input the quantity eaten. Portions may be measured by weight (weighed diary) or by estimation (non-weighted diary) employing food models, photographs, or ordinary household measurements like cups, glasses, and bowls (Dao et al., 2018). The estimate of portion size minimizes the workload of individuals but is less exact than weighing as with non-automated 24-hour recalls, food diary coding needs significant effort and resources. In addition, valid food composition charts, regionally applicable recipes, portion sizes, and food lists are necessary for this technique. Compared to recall-based dietary evaluation approaches, food records provide a greater degree of precision in analyzing food and nutrient consumption. Moreover, they give quantitative measures of individual dietary intake as well as food consumption. On the other hand, this strategy needs extensive training to reduce data-gathering inaccuracies.
Screeners are short tools that capture basic information on certain meals, drinks, and other dietary practices. Screeners may inquire about the frequency of consumption of specific foods or drinks and may therefore be seen as brief food frequency surveys, often devoid of questions addressing portion sizes (Kirkpatrick et al., 2017). Furthermore, screeners may inquire about dietary habits, such as the habitual use of butter on toast. Similar to eating frequency surveys, screeners are often conducted by the individual. However, they may be completed quite quickly, for instance, in less than 20 minutes (Kirkpatrick et al., 2017). As with food frequency surveys, patterning of food intake and other contextual details are not gathered unless specifically requested.
The data acquired using screeners are not suitable for use in the estimation of the total diet. Sugar-sweetened drinks are an example of a dietary component that is not broadly distributed across the food supply and may benefit from screeners’ usage. In contrast, they are considered less beneficial in terms of data accuracy for products like vegetables and fruits that may be taken in various forms (Kirkpatrick et al., 2017). As with frequency surveys, utilizing screeners to determine mean consumption among populations is not suggested.
In epidemiological research, it is often crucial to acquire details on an individual’s typical eating habits than their present diet. Normally, the regular daily diet is documented, including the time of each meal, its content, and snacking. The amount of servings and portions is used to determine the quality and quantity of food items. By completing a poll throughout the year, seasonal fluctuation is taken into consideration. Dietary history gives a more thorough evaluation of nutrition and facilitates analysis of lesser-known or unrecognized dietary components that may be recovered for future study (Kirkpatrick et al., 2017). The primary advantage of the diet history technique is its evaluation of meal patterns and food consumption data, as opposed to intakes over a brief period of time. Information on food preparation methods, for example, frying versus baking, may aid in better-describing nutrient consumption and exposure to other components in meals like charcoal broiling. When data is gathered independently for each meal, analyzing the combined impact of foods consumed together is feasible. Although a meal-based strategy demands a lot of time from the individual, it may give greater cognitive support for the memory process.
A shortcoming of the technique is that individuals are required to make several judgments on their typical diet and the quantity of food consumed. These subjective tests may be challenging for a few responders. In addition, it is difficult to examine the validity of food history techniques due to the lack of independent information about the individual’s typical long-term consumption. It has been discovered that nutrient estimations derived from diet histories are often greater than those derived from techniques that assess consumption over short durations, such as recalls (Kirkpatrick et al., 2017). However, the outcomes of these sorts of comparisons rely on both the methodology used and the research parameters.
The technique of assessing an individual’s nutritional intake by weighing is among the most precise ways available. A food supply inventory is conducted at the onset and conclusion of the survey. As additional food is obtained, its weight is measured and recorded. Weights and recordings of food intake at home and outdoors are kept, as are records of any wasted food. The nutritional content of various meals may be determined by reviewing the standard food tables (Thompson and Subar, 2017). At the conclusion of the survey, the quantity of food that was thrown away and the quantity of food that was not used are combined to determine the overall amount of wasted food. If all members of the family are adults, one can calculate the average daily weight intake of food for each individual by dividing the total amount of food eaten by the proportion of adults. It is possible to acquire additional information, such as by weighing the amounts of food provided to every family member before eating. The amount of food eaten may be computed as follows:
- (Initial inventory + issues or purchases) — (Final inventory and waste)
- Calculating the amount of food eaten per person per day is as follows:
- Total weight of food eaten ÷ (Days of surveys X number of people fed daily).
One of the primary strengths of the technique of weighing is that the participants with minimum supervision may perform it. In addition, the consumption of the food may be properly tracked for reference. On the other hand, the technique has been investigated to alter the individuals’ diets so dramatically that they no longer reflect a regular consumption pattern (Thompson and Subar, 2017). However, this approach is relatively expensive and needs specialized workers.
Ultimately, diet and nutrition have a substantial impact on human health. Dietary assessment starts with collecting information on the foods and drinks eaten during a specified time period. Dietary evaluation techniques include the 24-hour Dietary Recall Profile, the Food Frequency Questionnaire (FFQ), the Screeners Profile, the Food Record Profile, the diet history, and the weighing Method. These approaches would help create information on various individuals’ dietary patterns and food accessibility. Thus, this, in turn, would not only give guidance for food policy but also aid in assessing the effectiveness of nutrition programs presently underway and provide insight for future planning.
Reference List
Coates, J., et al. (2017) ‘Overcoming Dietary Assessment Challenges in Low-Income Countries: Technological Solutions Proposed by the International Dietary Data Expansion (INDDEX) Project’, Nutrients, 9(3), p.289.
Dao, M.C., et al. (2018) ‘Dietary assessment toolkits: An overview’, Public Health Nutrition, 22(3), pp.404–418.
Gibson, R.S., Charrondiere, U.R. and Bell, W., (2017) ‘Measurement Errors in Dietary Assessment Using Self-Reported 24-Hour Recalls in Low-Income Countries and Strategies for Their Prevention’, Advances in Nutrition: An International Review Journal, 8(6), pp.980–991.
Kirkpatrick, S.I., et al. (2017) ‘Self-report dietary assessment tools used in Canadian research: A Scoping Review’, Advances in Nutrition: An International Review Journal, 8(2), pp.276–289.
Thompson, F.E. and Subar, A.F., (2017) ‘Dietary Assessment Methodology’, Nutrition in the Prevention and Treatment of Disease, pp.5–48.