Nutrition Journal Project
Required Components
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14 days of food diary logs (include all foods/drinks and a breakdown of carbohydrates, proteins, fat, and calories for each
food)
Daily calorie totals
Daily macromolecule % totals breakdown- shown as a pie graph (what percent of your daily diet/calories is from
carbohydrates, fats, proteins)
Customized daily food plan from choosemyplate.gov (this will be used to assist you in your analysis)
Nutrition Journal Analysis Report (see back for requirements)
Scoring Guide
Component- bullets indicated requirements for a complete score
1. Food Logs:
 All logs present (reasonable amount of food logged each day)
 Calories and macromolecule information provided for all foods
 Logs are dated and neat/organized
2. Daily Totals/Pie Graphs
 Total daily calories calculated and indicated
 Pie graph for each day showing the distribution of carbohydrates, fats and proteins
 Graphs are neat, labeled and accurate
3. Food Plan
 Customized plan from choosemyplate.gov attached to report (print as a PDF file)
 Information accurately entered for your individual profile
4. Analysis Report
 All questions answered clearly and thoughtfully
 Answers refer directly to your food logs and cite specific examples from your daily
food logs
 Answers refer to/incorporate a discussion of your customized food plan
 Additional online resources are cited to support answers/analysis
Score
_____/21
_____/14
_____5
_____/35
Analysis Report - Structure your paper using the following headings/prompts.
I. Introduction (6 pts): Your diet is influenced by forces and circumstances that may be very different from other high school aged
students. In your introduction weave the following questions into a paragraph that establishes the background and context under
which you eat.
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How available is food? How abundant is food you select?
What do the foods cost you?
How often are you provided a meal?
Who plans your meals? Who prepares your meals?
Are you forced to eat specific foods or is your food selection flexible?
What is the importance of nutrition to you?
II. Overall Eating Pattern (8 pts): You spent 2 weeks logging your diet. Use the following questions to discuss and summarize your
overall eating patterns. Be sure to specifically cite your data (charts, macromolecule counts, foods, numbers, amounts, etc.).
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Is the 14-day period typical for your diet? If not, how is it different and why?
How does your diet vary between weekdays and weekends?
How often do you skip meals and what is the impact on the overall quality of your diet?
Discuss factors that influenced your food selections on the weekend? On week days?
III. Healthfulness of Your Diet (15 pts):
Use and refer to (tell the reader where to look for your evidence) your food journals, online resources, appropriate guidelines and
the customized plan from mydailyplate.gov to assess your overall diet patterns. In this section include an analysis of your overall diet
(strengths and weaknesses).
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Adequacy – Evaluate your diet in terms of meeting your daily requirements for: calories (energy), carbohydrates, fats and
proteins
Moderation – Evaluate your diet in terms of your dietary guidelines outlined in your plan and/or on MyPlate (try to
examine sources of saturated fat, sodium, sugar, cholesterol, etc.)
Balance – Evaluate the balance in terms of the
o Proportion of total calories from carbohydrate, fat, and protein sources (use your pie charts)
o Distribution of foods into food groups as recommended by MyPlate or your daily food plan
 A food group is considered inadequate if it falls below 75% of the recommended intake.
 If your diet is short in certain food groups on a regular basis, be sure to state the number of servings you
are short and why you think you came up short.
Variety – examine the variety of foods within each food group that you selected. For example, how many different types of
vegetables did you eat? How many different grains did you eat? Color is another quick snapshot to the variety of foods you
eat – yellow, green, blue vegetables all have different nutrient profiles.
IV. Action Plan/Summary (6 pts):
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In the “Healthfulness of your Diet” section you indicated strengths and weaknesses in your diet. Use that section to
address how you specifically could change your diet to correct deficiencies and/or excesses of the nutrients you identified
above. Consider the following:
o Specific foods/food groups – For example, if you are low in protein, indicate which foods that are available and you
like that you could make a conscious effort to include in the future.
o Is there any area from your dietary analysis that you are concerned about? If so, how do you plan to resolve them?
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Briefly summarize the key findings from your diet analysis. Consider the following:
o What did you learn about your diet from this assignment?
o What was most challenging about keeping a food log for 14 days?
o How was this activity beneficial?
o Were any of your findings surprising/enlightening? If so, which and why?