Dietary Intake Assessment  

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Dietary Intake Assessment
Dietary intake is a lifestyle factor that has a large effect on health and wellness. After reading the required and recommended materials, assess your dietary intake by tracking your diet and using appropriate tools to review it.
To begin, keep a record of your food intake for one day. You may use the sample Food ’n’ Mood Journal or create something similar on your own.  Assessing your food intake can help you determine which nutrients you are consuming in excess and which nutrients you need more of.  Be sure to include serving sizes and all beverages consumed.
Next, go to the USDA’s Choose My Plate website.  Locate and click on the SuperTracker link which is located under “Popular Topics” on the left-side of the homepage.   On the SuperTracker homepage, create a profile by clicking on Add Profile in the upper right-hand corner of the homepage.  By creating a profile, your current health information will be saved for future use.  Additionally, you can use the “My Top 5 Goals” section to set your desired health and fitness goals.  This will then reflect in your “My Plan” section, by showing you your target daily food and activity requirements.
 

Next, click on FoodTracker, which is located in the square in the middle of the homepage beneath the center page heading.  Here you can enter the food that you recorded in your daily journal.  If you need to enter ingredients for a particular item or dish (like a breakfast smoothie), click on the “Create a Combo” button, which is next to the “Meals” heading and daily calorie count in the center of the page.
 

Once all your food and beverages have been entered for the day, your completed SuperTracker chart will look similar to this example:
 

Pay attention to the “Daily Food Group Targets” section and also click on and review the Intake Nutrient Report (under the graph).  The analysis in your video journal should contain two parts.
Part 1: Assess your diet by addressing the points below:

  • How does your fat and caloric intake compare with the      target levels?
  • What vitamins and minerals fell below the target level?
  • How does your protein intake compare with the target      level?
  • Explain the importance of consuming the following:
    • Minerals
    • Vitamins
    • Carbohydrates
    • Water
    • Protein
    • Fiber
    • Fat

Part 2: Examine the effects of your diet on your health and wellness by addressing the following in your video YouTube journal entry:

  • I was surprised to learn that ______________.
  • What effects does your diet have on your health and      wellness?
  • Does your dietary intake protect you or increase your      health risks? Explain.
  • Explain two ways you could improve your diet.

Your journal should be two to five minutes in duration.  Review the YouTube Webcam Quick-Start Guide on how to create a YouTube account and create a YouTube video journal.  Submit a one-page Word document that contains the URL to your YouTube video journal by Day 7.