Dietary Intake Assessment Methods for Adults

Dietary assessment is a challenging undertaking. Individuals may consume many different foods at several eating occasions on any given day and do so both at home and away from home. Social, environmental, and cognitive events can affect the ability and/or willingness to report what is consumed. Expanding food market places and an increasing number of health-related dietary components require consistent updates of food composition databases. Despite assessment challenges, dietary data are widely used to provide dietary guidance for individuals and institutions, to interpret clinical and laboratory data, to evaluate intervention outcomes, and to establish dietary guidelines and intake recommendations.