Health Nutrition - Research Paper Example

In this paper, I conduct such an assessment using two methods- Diet History and Food Record. Specifically, I would be using a 7 day food record. There are actually four methods : 1) Diet History (DH), 2) Food Record (FR), 3) 24 hour recall and 4) Food Frequency Questionnaire. Although there have been significant literature regarding the comparison of the four methods such as that of Hopkins (2000) and Lubrok (2002) report on the appropriateness of using the four. Each method had its strengths and weaknesses.

One of the most important issues is the degree to which the data can change temporally and spatially. Nonetheless, the study supports some of the earlier findings like that of the work of Buzzard et al (1996) where the use of more than method can complement the weakness of the others. That is, they can relate the consistency of the findings thereby making the researcher and the audience more confident in the findings. Why focus on only two methods The reason behind this is that DH and FR are the ones that are prominent and used extensively in the field.

In an assessment study of what nutritionists recommend to use, Darwin et al (1998) found that DH and FR stands out above the rest. Nonetheless, most of the respondents favored DH better than FR because of the intensiveness of DH and because of the time span covered. FR usually takes a few days as compared to DH. In this study, I aim to compare Diet History with a 7 day Food Record thru a statistical report using a population of 41 respondents 19-41 years old. This study also provides an opportunity for me to better appreciate the use of these methods and gain some important insights in the process.

MethodologyRespondentsFor this study, data regarding food intake of from 41 respondents were obtained. To address the issue of biases regarding age, the respondents were chosen so as to provide a 19-41 age spectrum. Of the 41 respondents, 5 were males and 36 were females. Relevant anthropometrical data such as age, weight, height, Body Mass Index (BMI) and Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) were collected and compiled.Dietary assessmentThe data collection process involved the collection of the Diet History and the 7-day food record of the respondents.

With a knowledge of the food intake, the total energy uptake (in kJ) and the total fiber (g) were determined along with the breakdown of the components comprising the total energy. The energy percentages included %protein, % fat, % carbohydrate and % alcohol. The fat category was further categorized into Polyunsaturated Fat (%PUFA), Monounsaturated (%MUFA) and saturated fatty acids (%SFA). All of this were determined so as to provide a complete picture of the fodd intake of the respondents.Data analysisIn the past, statistical computations were conducted manually.

With the advent of computers, such a tedious task has been automated. There are many statistical software currently available in the market but the most popular of which is the SPSS. I will be using the Version 14.0 for this study. For the purpose of consistency, all of the analysis was conducted using a statistical significance of 0.05. Using the Descriptive Statistics feature of SPSS, the mean and standard