COMPUTER DIET EVALUATION – NDFS 200
ASSIGNMENT: In this assignment you will eat “normally” (baseline) for 3 consecutive days, keeping
a careful record of everything you consume (foods, amounts, drinks other than
water, etc.). You will perform a computer analysis on this list of foods to determine
your nutrient intake, your caloric intake, your percent calories from fat, etc. Based
on that analysis you will then decide on a goal to achieve during a second 3-day
period and modify your intake to accomplish that goal. You will again keep a careful
record of everything you eat and analyze that record to see how close you came to
meeting your goal.
PURPOSE:
1. To learn about changing your nutrient intake, your diet composition, or eating habits. You know
what foods you eat. This assignment will help you learn what nutrients are present,
and in what amounts, in those foods. You will observe how closely your intake
matches dietary guidelines or recommendations, and learn how easy or difficult it
may be to modify your dietary habits and intake.
2. To reinforce/expand your understanding of food sources of various nutrients and other dietary
components.
3. To increase your awareness of the variety of features available on diet analysis websites.
4. To increase your empathy for clients, patients, students, etc. who need to change their behavior in
specific ways: translating nutrient recommendations into suggestions about eating
foods, overcoming habits, etc.
5. To increase your understanding of the scientific method through doing a simple “experiment” on
yourself and collecting data.
BASELINE
Choose a consecutive 3 day period including one weekend day – ThFSa or SuMT to keep
track of what you eat. You should not use atypical days e.g. when you are sick, skipping meals,
attending an all-you-can-eat buffet, etc. Eat as simply as you can, while still eating typically for
you. You should know from past experience with diet analyses that the simpler your intake is,
the easier it is to analyze. Find a reasonable compromise between a complex assortment of
many foods in tiny amounts (e.g. 1 Tbsp of raisins, a casserole that you must “dissect” in order
to calculate it; 28 Ritz crackers and 14 peanuts) vs. a “simple” diet of easily recognizable single
ingredient foods (4 oz pork chop, 4 oz baked potato, 3 slices white bread, 1 Hostess Twinkie).
A complex diet is tedious to enter into the computer, but an oversimplified diet is meaningless.
Write down everything you eat each day, in as much detail as you can. Note brand names,
amounts, etc. Fill in the food chart lists provided for each of the three days. Caution: Be
careful in estimating your serving sizes! Measure until you know you can estimate accurately.
COMPUTER ANALYSIS -FitDay (Baseline Diet)
Setting Up An Account
These instructions are for fitday classic version. To get to the classic version, go to profile, edit,
then change version from 2.0 to classic. We need you to use the classic version.
Many of you have never used this program before and will need to create a new account. To do this,
go to www.fitday.com and click on the link “get your free account.” Create a user name and a
password (write this information down somewhere as will need to access your account several times
for this project), enter in your personal information (gender, height, age, activity level), and then
click “customize FitDay.” To go on to enter your baseline food information click “Return To Your
FitDay Journal” and this will take
you to the “foods” page.
Entering Foods
If you are entering foods from
previous days, you must click the
“previous day” link to the left of
the current day until you reach the
first calendar date of your
baseline diet. Enter your first food
item into the search bar on the
center of the screen and click
“FoodSearch.” Pick the most
appropriate option closest to the
food you consumed and click
“Add To Food Log.” This will
take you back to the “foods”
screen and you can adjust the amount and unit of the food you ate according to your records. Then
click “save changes.” Repeat with the rest of the food you ate that day. To enter foods on a separate
day, click the “show next day” link above.
Reports
The two printouts that give all the
required nutrients are the “calories
eaten pie chart” for the
macronutrients and the “total
nutrition” for the micronutrients. To
add cholesterol, pull up the “total
nutrition” report then click “set a
nutrition goal” under “more info”.
Choose cholesterol from the dropdown menu and make sure to check
the box. It should be added to the
“total nutrition” report. If you can’t
get this to work for the average
report, then just average the three by
hand and write in the number. The
only nutrient that is missing from FitDay is folate. It isn’t listed on any of the reports, nor is it an
option for a custom nutrition goal so it will be left off of the report.
SET A GOAL
Based on your results from the baseline period, set a goal to reach during a second 3-day
experimental period. If your first diet analysis shows that your intake of certain nutrients is at
risk of being low (< 70% RDA or AI) your first priority should be to increase intake of those
nutrients to acceptable levels. Examples of other goals include, but are not limited to:
1. Increase or decrease the quantity of 2 or more nutrients in your diet. For example, women
might choose to increase their intakes of iron, folic acid, and/or calcium. Men might want
to experiment by lowering their animal protein intake.
2. Decrease the fat in your diet to account for no more than 30% of kcal or increase your intake
of dietary fiber.
3. Stick to the Atkins or other popular weight loss diet for 3 days and see what it does to your
intake of kcal and nutrients, particularly fat.
4. Limit yourself to a 1500 kcal diet while at the same time meeting all nutrient
recommendations.
5. Become a vegetarian for 3 days. Decide ahead of time if you will be a lacto-ovo vegetarian,
a strict no-animal-products vegetarian (vegan) or, even more restrictive, a “fruitarian”.
6. Make sure to get Five-a-Day servings of fruits and vegetables.
7. Pretend you have celiac disease and cannot eat anything derived from wheat (including
modified food starch), barley (including malt flavoring) or rye. You'll need to read labels
carefully to do this one.
8. A list of ideas is posted on blackboard as well.
The following list shows which dietary components should be analyzed by the program:
protein, carbohydrate, dietary fiber, total fat, saturated fat, mono fat, poly fat,
cholesterol, vit A carotene, vitamin A, thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, B6, B12,
pantothenic acid, vit C, vit D, vit E, calcium, iron, sodium, zinc, copper.
EXPERIMENT
The baseline and experimental time periods should include the same three days of the
week and be as similar as possible in everything except your food intake. For example,
this could be SuMT of one week and SuMT of a following week. When you do the
“experiment,” work from a foods perspective, as you would in counseling a client or
student. For example, if you are trying to increase iron, eat foods that are generally
considered good sources of iron. By now you should know enough about food sources of
various nutrients that you shouldn’t have to use food composition tables to get ideas of
what to eat. Keep careful records and perform the computer analysis as above.
COMPUTER ANALYSIS
Follow the same computer analysis procedure that you used for your Baseline Diet.
1. Enter your diet into the program; be particularly careful in entering amounts consumed.
2. Print the actual intake of each nutrient with the % DRI consumed of each nutrient (“total
nutrition report”), showing the average for the three day baseline period, as well as the %
AMDR (“calories eaten pie chart report”) for the average for the three day. In FitDay it
will appear as a week average but will still provide the appropriate information for the three
day average as only three days per week (one week for baseline, one week for
experimental) will have food logs.
3. Look over your data and fill-in the appropriate information on the “Data Evaluation” sheet.
INTERPRETATION
The computer can do calculations, but humans must do the interpreting of the data. To
complete the assignment, write a one page summary (single spaced, 1” margins, Times
New Roman, 12 pt font) including your analysis and interpretation of your baseline and
experimental data.
In your interpretation you should address ALL of the following:
comment on any inadequacies or excesses in your baseline and experimental diets.
comment on the physiological significance of the dietary component(s) you chose to alter
(why they are important in the body) and give the rationale for the goal you set for the
experimental phase.
explain if your dietary modifications had (or did not have) the intended effect and why.
discuss the effect your experimental diet had on your intake of other nutrients not targeted
by your goal.
comment on the ease or difficulty of making the changes you chose and how likely you or
anyone would be to continue that eating pattern indefinitely.
Name:_____________________________
DATA EVALUATION List the
nutrients that were:
BASELINE DATA
EXPERIMENTAL DATA
At risk for being excessive.
>UL or >500% RDA/AI if no UL listed
At risk for being low.
<70% RDA/AI
% consumed of calculated total kcal
requirement
Provide all the information indicated in parenthesis: (underline any that are not within the AMDR)
Carbohydrate (grams and % kcal)
Protein (grams and % kcal)
Lipid (grams and % kcal)
Saturated fat (grams and % kcal)
Polyunsaturated fat (grams and % kcal)
Monounsaturated fat (grams & % kcal)
Sat Fat:PUFA:MUFA (ratio of grams of
the above 3 rows, with the lowest as the
comparison)
Cholesterol (mg instead of grams here)
Food Guide Pyramid servings of fruits
and vegetables (average/day of each)
Dietary Fiber (grams and % RDA)
Describe overall satiety
YOU SHOULD TURN IN (in the following order—points will be deducted if pages do not follow
this order):
a. The table comparing Baseline and Experimental data.
b. Your one page, typed interpretation.
c. The “total nutrition” and “calories eaten pie chart” printouts of your actual intake of nutrients, the
DRI percentages, AMDR percentages, and fat breakdown for the Baseline diet analysis
(average of three days).
d. The “total nutrition” and “calories eaten pie chart” printouts of your actual intake of nutrients and
your DRI percentages, AMDR percentages, and fat breakdown for your Experimental diet
analysis (average of three days).
e. The 3-day food logs provided for both the baseline and experiment (not the software printouts, use
the food logs on the next few pages of these instructions).
f. Staple the above papers in the order they are listed. Do not include any folders, cover sheets, etc.
Note: Any other printouts, food lists or pages need not be turned in. Also be sure you are turning in
printouts for the analysis of the average of all three days of your diets. If you have any questions
make sure to ask the TA well before the assignment is due.