Write a report that gives suggestions on improving dietary habits.

Write a report that gives suggestions on improving dietary habits.

Introduction:
People often get into eating habits that can place them increased risk for disease. Modern fast foods fail to deliver all nutrients necessary for a healthy and sustainable lifestyle. It is often difficult to get through a busy day without greatly exceeding calorie needs on the modern nutrient-poor diet. In the high-stress modern world, many sources of pressure influence eating habits. This is especially true for students. Time limitations, availability of foods, grueling schedules, limited income, and peer pressure all can be negative influences on eating habits. Dietary extremes based mostly on pseudoscience become attractive, though generally unrealistic as long-term strategies and potentially dangerous.
Fortunately, most harmful dietary habits are relatively simple to correct. But to make any beneficial change requires an accurate observation of dietary habits. This is typically done with a dietary analysis. A simple dietary analysis consists of an accurate dietary record, a dietary analysis program that compares the diet with current recommendations, and careful analysis.

Procedure:
This project will consist of three parts:
Keeping an accurate dietary record
Entering that data into a dietary analysis program that will generate the data
Writing a dietary analysis report

The Dietary record:
Keep a dietary journal for three days. To obtain accurate information:
Write down everything you eat including sauces like mayonnaise or ketchup for example that have significant calories.
If you make a soup or a sandwich, be sure the record each component.
Keep your normal routine. Don’t be influenced by the fact that you are keeping journal. This is potentially a significant source of error.
Include one weekend day in your recording. People generally eat differently on the weekend. For example, record your diet for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday or Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday.
Be aware of quantity. Carefully measure or try to accurately estimate portions. Here are some typical weights and measures:
1 cup = 8 oz. = 1/2 pint = 16 Tablespoons (Tbsp) = 240 ml
1 Tbsp = 3 teaspoons (tsp) = 15 ml
1 oz. = 28.35 gm
100 g = 1/2 cup of most foods
Do not include supplements (pills). You may mention them in your discussion.
Record also your activities because they will influence your dietary needs.

The Dietary analysis:
Once you have a dietary record, you are ready to enter the information into a dietary analysis program. Since choosemyplate.gov shut down their very useful Food Tracker feature, it’s been a struggle to find a dietary analysis program that everyone can use at home on their computer for free. One I’ve found that is very user-friendly program that allows you to average three or more days and has no annoying adds. It’s called My Food Record. The link is below.
https://cronometer.com/signup/

You will be asked to create an account so enter the data from your dietary log. Select any three days you wish, and then add the foods. The program will generate a chart that will compare your intake with dietary recommendations. With this information, you can complete a report. This report should be simple and useful.

Generating the nutrition report from Cronometer
In order to make Cronometer average three days and give you recommendations that are reasonable, you will have to make a couple of changes to the default settings.
Go to settings, then Profiles + Targets, then scroll down to Macro Ratios. Set the Protein, Net Carbs, and Fat to 15%, 55%, and 30% respectively. The default, 25% of calories from protein, is excessive for recommendations.
To average your three after you have recorded them, Click on trends. Select last 7 days, and then non-empty days. It will average the last 7 days, but since you only recorded three days, it will ignore the four blank days.

Dietary Analysis Perspective
Here’s a way to think of the final Dietary Analysis report that should put it into perspective. Suppose you were exploring an area of the world with which you were very unfamiliar and ran into a fascinating civilization. You wanted to report on their health, especially with respect to diet. You would ask some very basic questions like the following:
1.How do they meet their calorie needs? What are their most important sources of calories? You would list them in order of importance.
2.How do they distribute their calories among proteins, fats, and carbohydrates?
3.What are their most important sources of proteins, fats, and carbohydrates? You would list each in order of importance. This would give you a complete picture of their macronutrients.
4.In obtaining their macronutrients (protein, fat, carbohydrate), are they meeting their micronutrient needs? Where is their diet weak or strong in micronutrients (vitamins and minerals)?
5.You would present this information in an easy to read format and then give your summary.
This is why I set up the tables in the instructions. As a reference, read the article I supplied in unit 1 under papers of interest on the Tarahumara Indians. It’s an old article that is about the diet of these interesting people who are ultra-marathon runners (at least as they were in 1979). Look at the table on page three, and see how with a glance you can get a great snapshot of how these amazing people met their dietary needs. If you take this approach to the dietary analysis, you will easily earn an excellent grade.
The question of sustainability is extremely important, so much so that I will give you a 5-point bonus if you can make the following addition to this report. Describe how you would make the diet adequate with respect to dietary recommendations under the following stipulation: Only 5% of calories can come from animal foods. Report this as a separate table or detailed paragraph. This is something you should know how to do for the future as diet has such a powerful impact on the climate.

The report to turn in
Begin with an introductory paragraph that tells what you did, the dietary analysis program you used, if this represents your normal eating pattern, etc. Note: it is not required that you record your own diet. If you wish to do this dietary analysis on someone else, that is entirely up to you. The reason I offer this option is that not everyone wants to record what they do personally. That’s no problem. I just want you to understand how the dietary analysis works as a tool. There is no page limit on the report. Just make it clear and concise.

Focus your report on the following questions:
How does the intake of essential nutrients compare with guidelines? Which nutrients are lower than recommendations? Are there any dietary cautions?
Does the calorie intake meet energy needs?
Is the fiber intake adequate?
What is the accepted macronutrient distribution range (AMDR)? This is the distribution of calories among protein, fat, and carbohydrates as a percent of calories
Does the intake of fruits and vegetables match dietary recommendations?

Now it’s time to look at staple foods, the foods we live on, the ones that are the greatest contributors of macronutrients to our overall diet. This can be very revealing. To do this, use the following table (or one that is similar of your own creation) that records the greatest contributors of calories, protein, fat, and carbohydrate the diet you recorded.

List, in order of greatest contribution, the top five foods in each category that are the primary sources of calories, protein, fat, and carbohydrate to the diet according to the table below.

Top five macronutrient contributors to the diet
CALORIES: for the average representative day, list the top five contributors of CALORIES in the diet

Food description
Calories
% of recommendation

PROTEIN: for the average representative day, list the top five contributors of PROTEIN in the diet

Food description
Grams of protein
% of recommendation

FAT: for the average representative day, list the top five contributors of FAT in the diet

Food description
Grams of fat
% of recommendation

CARBOHYDRATES: for the average representative day, list the top five contributors of CARBOHYDRATES in the diet

Food description
Grams of Carbohydrate
% of total grams of Carbohydrate

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