Nutrition in the Prevention and Treatment of Disease

This chapter is a revision of the similarly named chapter in the earlier editions [1 3] of this book, which itself was based on the “Dietary Assessment Resource Manual” [4] by Frances E. Thompson and Tim Byers, adapted with permission from the Journal of Nutrition. Dietary assessment encompasses food supply and production at the national level, food purchases at the household level, and food consumption at the individual level. This review focuses only on individual-level food intake. It is intended to serve as a resource for those who wish to assess diet in a research study, for example, to describe the intakes of a population, using individual measurements for grouplevel analysis. This chapter does not address clinical assessment of individuals for individual counseling. The first section reviews major dietary assessment methods, their advantages and disadvantages, and validity. The next sections describe which dietary assessment methods are most appropriate for different types of studies and for various types of populations. Finally, specific issues that relate to all methods are discussed.