Five Day Food Record and Diet Analysis Adapted from assignments by Sara Ducey an
ID: 122526 • Letter: F
Question
Five Day Food Record and Diet Analysis
Adapted from assignments by Sara Ducey and Dorelle Engel
The objective of this assignment is to determine your specific nutrient needs, and then compare your actual dietary intake with your needs. Energy-wise, do you over-eat or under-eat? Do you eat too much fat, but not enough protein? Have too little vitamin A and way too much sodium? Questions such as those, and more, will be answered by completing this assignment.
Getting Started
Go to the SuperTracker website at https://www.choosemyplate.gov/SuperTracker/default.aspx and investigate the different links here. Create a New Profile: create your personal login, enter in your information (age, height, weight, gender, etc). Bookmark this page for future ease of access.
Gathering the Diet Intake Data:
Gather information on your diet (all foods and beverages and supplements[1]) for a period of five days (a combination of weekdays and at least 1 weekend day). Keep your food record form with you at all times. These data are very hard to recreate later.
Try to accurately measure your foods as best as you can. Use measuring cups and spoons at first. If you don’t keep accurate measures, the analysis will be much less useful. This website is helpful with how to measure: http://education.wichita.edu/caduceus/examples/servings/household_items.htm.
Entering foods eaten into “Food Tracker”
Once you have your diet intake data, you are ready to enter the data into the website. This part of the assignment is easy for those who eat a standard American diet, and more difficult for those who eat interesting, unusual, or ethnic foods. A major weakness of SuperTracker is that it does not have an expansive database. If you eat lots of homemade foods, try your best to find the closest choice. It will not be perfect. If a fish you eat does not appear, find another fish that you guess may be somewhat the same. I appreciate how difficult this part of the assignment can be. In fact, if you have a complex diet, you need to only analyze three days, instead of five. Note: complex diets will have >20 foods per day.
Analyzing Your Data – Click on the “My Reports” Tab
Create the following reports and then click “export to excel” to save and attach to the assignment. Change the column width or use a smaller font to show the material on a single page wherever possible.
Food Group & Calorie Report
Nutrient Report
Meal Summary Report. After you export to excel, please “clean up” the spreadsheet so that only rows for the days with food are showing and not the words “empty”
Answer the questions on the attached questionnaire, and attach the additional materials in this order:
Completed Questionnaire
The reports in the order they appear in the list above
Your food lists for all 5 days
Macronutrient Name
AMDR Range (%)
On average, my diet provided these percentages.
Protein
10 – 15%
Fats
20 -35%
Carbohydrate
45-65%
Alcohol
No AMDR
1a. Review the energy data.
How many kcals does the software estimate you need?
kcal
How many kcals (on average) did you actually eat?
kcal
What percent of the goal did you consume?
%
1b. Reflect (think about and then write about) your energy intake. Consider: did you under- or overeat. Is there any reason you may want to challenge the computer’s assumptions about what your needs are?
2a. What is your Body Mass Index (BMI)? Use an online BMI calculator to determine this number.
2b. Bold and underline the category that your BMI falls into:
Below normal (<19)
Normal (19-24)
Overweight (25-29)
Obese (30 -39)
Extreme Obesity (40+)
2c. Is this the first time you’ve seen your BMI? Yes No
Reflect on your Body Mass Index value. What are you thinking? Does assessing your body composition using BMI seem accurate for you?
2d. Use the Internet to research alternate methods of assessing body composition. Tell me about three of these methods. Might any of these be preferable to the BMI?
Name of Assessment Method
What does it measure? Might it be better than the BMI for assessing body composition? Why?
3a. Look at your intake of carbohydrates.
Grams of Sugars
g
Grams of Total Carbohydates
g
Percent of carbohydrates intake from added sugars
(g sugar divided by g carb) * 100
%
3b. If your sugars are high, please tell me what the source of these sugars are: Are they mostly natural sugars from milk/dairy and fruits? Or, are they mostly from refined sugars like high fructose corn syrup, white sugar, cookies/cakes/candies and soft drinks?
3c. Time to review fibers. Remember that fibers are from plant foods only.
Recommended Intake of Dietary Fiber
g
Actual average intake of dietary fibers
g
Percent of Goal
%
3d. Comment on your fiber intake.
3e. Name ten foods that are naturally rich in dietary fibers.
Grams of fiber
Name of Food
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
4a. Review your lipid intake:
Saturated Fats (grams)
Monounsaturated (grams)
Polyunsaturated (grams)
Total Fats (grams)
4b. How does your dietary fat intake compare with recommendations? Comment on % kcal from fats. (Check AMDR on the first question of this questionnaire.)
5. Evaluate your diet for vitamin and mineral content.
NUTRIENT
PERCENT OF GOAL
LIST FIVE FOODS THAT ARE HIGH IN THIS NUTRIENT
WATER-SOLUBLE VITAMINS
Thiamin B1
%
Riboflavin B2
%
Niacin B3
%
Vitamin B6
%
Vitamin B12
%
Folate
%
Vitamin C
%
FAT-SOLUBLE VITAMINS
Vitamin D
%
Vitamin A
%
Vitamin E
%
Vitamin K
%
MINERALS
% DRI
Five Nutrient-Rich Foods
Calcium
%
Iron
%
Magnesium
%
Phosphorus
%
Potassium
%
Selenium
%
Sodium
%
Zinc
%
Now you will set three goals for yourself to improve your diet. These should be directly related to strengths and weaknesses you have identified during this assignment. You may use the example at the bottom of the page to help you format your goals.
Goal 1:
Three Specific Activities I Can Do to Help Me Achieve My Goal:
1)
2)
3)
Goal 2:
Three Specific Activities I Can Do to Help Me Achieve My Goal:
1)
2)
3)
Goal 3:
Three Specific Activities I Can Do to Help Me Achieve My Goal:
1)
2)
3)
I have posted these goals in a place where I can review them daily.
[Text Box: Goal: I want to eat five servings of fruits and vegetables each day. Three Specific activities to accomplish goal: 1) I will wash, cut and bag veggies and have them ready in my refrigerator. 2) I will promise to eat a serving of vegetables at breakfast, each day. 3) I will eat one large salad each day.]
Summary
In a few paragraphs, summarize your experience recording your food intake and performing the diet assessment. What did you think of SuperTracker? What were the benefits of completing this assignment? What were the challenges? In addition, comment on whether the questions used for this assignment were helpful in understanding your diet analysis reports – what additions or omissions would you recommend be included in a future diet analysis assignment?
Use the following log sheet, or a notebook of your own, to record all foods and beverages consumed. It is best to record this data as soon as you eat or drink the items so that you do not forget anything.
Daily Food Log
Day of the Week and Date: ____________________________________________
Time
Food or Beverage
Quantity/Amount
[1] Don’t enter the supplements into the software. I want you to see how well you do on foods alone.
Explanation / Answer
SUMMARY:
Identify whether your current consumption and drinking habits address your total vigor and macronutrient needs via analysis of a two day diet diary
My calorie consumption is excessive for a female of my age and activity level. Based upon the Calorie Calculator web site I need 2600 calories per day to maintain my weight. I am obese according to the BMI Calculator: 32.7. My calorie consumption is excessive for a female of my age and activity level making me overweight, but the term obese kind of hurts. I would not consider myself obese. As far as energy intake needs I am not quite certain how much energy I need to consume to maintain a healthy body weight. I am striving to get 60% of my calories from carbohydrates, 20% of my calories from fats and proteins. I also need approximately 30g of fiber each day.
Based upon my food ingestion, I would say that I am tremendously excessive in my calorie intake. I nearly triplicated what I would need in a characteristic day. Over the sequence of the two days my carbohydrate, fat and protein intake were way too great in elevation. I probably eat out a couple of times every week and that really jerked me well over the edge. My fat intake is very high especially soaked fat. I think I could have really improved my protein choices on this day. Percentage-wise I was much nearer to meeting my goal as far as my protein intake goes. I also love fruits and vegetables, but I rarely consume them. I was close to meeting my fiber needs. I'm not sure how as I ate very few servings of vegetables and no fruit servings. Occasionally I have very little time and am in and I just go out and buy what palates good.
I certainly need to make some important changes. First, I need to radically cut down on my entire energy intake. This could best be attained by eating three much smaller meals each day with a small mid-afternoon snack. I need to complement whole grains to my breakfast. I can do this by consumption of oatmeal. I could also twitch my day off with a piece of fresh fruit. I can add a salad to my lunch and perhaps some lettuce to a lean protein sandwich like tuna or turkey. I could consume another piece of fruit with this meal. For my afternoon food I could select a green smoothie with spinach, water, a banana and some blueberries. For dinner I can select some whole grain pasta with some fresh, cooked vegetables. My dessert could be a small Greek yogurt with some honey and fresh fruit topped with some chopped almonds.
I must make these variations soon as high fat diets lead to cardiovascular disease and my uncle who was only 53 recently had triple heart bypass surgery. My father is a type 2 diabetic and my mother is also obese. The planned changes may allow me in reduction of my BMI and lower my risks for cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. Moreover, by eating an energy sufficient and nutrient dense diet I may start to have more energy and start an exercise program.
This task really helped me identify why I have developed obesity. The changes I planned should allow me to get to a healthy body mass and cut the risks associated with being obese.
Total Energy Need: 2500 calories
Body Mass Index calculation: 32.6 (obese)
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