A dietary assessment is a process designed to determine what kinds of foods a person is consuming and in what amounts. This information is combined with the results of physical evaluations and diagnostic screening to come up with a complete nutritional assessment of a patient. Such assessments are used to find out whether patients are meeting their dietary needs, to identify health risk factors a patient may be experiencing, and to help people design appropriate diets.
There are a number of dietary assessment methods that can be used to collect this data. The best is direct observation, usually only possible in a hospital environment where food intake can be precisely monitored. Patients who agree to being taped can also be assessed outside the hospital, although this can make the patient self conscious and it may mean that accurate results are hard to obtain.
Other methods can include keeping a food diary to track all foods consumed or self-reporting in interviews with a care provider. Phone interviews and interviews in a clinic can be used to solicit information about what people are eating. Self-reporting for a dietary assessment can be a flawed data collection method, as patients may understate the amount of food they are eating, forget to note down snacks, or fail to measure portions properly, resulting in skewed data. Steps to help patients record information properly can include providing visual representations of portion sizes and providing patients with checklists they can use instead of writing out the details of their meals.
A dietary assessment can be used to explore the possibility of food allergies, identify nutritional deficiencies that may be contributing to health problems, or narrow down possible causes of weight loss or gain. At the conclusion of the assessment, a nutritionist, doctor, or dietitian can review the information and make recommendations. These can include changing food intake, adding in more exercise, eliminating certain foods, or adding supplements to the diet to meet nutritional needs.
Dietary assessments are more valuable when patients are honest, accurate, and detailed in their responses. The more complete the information, the better the recommendations from a practitioner will be. Patients will be taken through a detailed process to learn how to track and report what they are consuming and some find it helpful to do things like taking pictures, weighing, or measuring before eating to generate unbiased data. It's also important to remember that there are no right or wrong answers on a dietary assessment and that incomplete information can result in compromised care.
