What is a nutritional assessment?

This would be a complete workup of a person's dietary
intake, dietary needs, and current physical status. A full assessment would begin with a
physical examination that recorded the person's weight, height, and overall physical
health. Blood would be drawn and a number of parameters examined, including red blood
cell status, blood proteins, and various ions.

Then the
person would be interviewed to explore their dietary basics; for instance if they are a
vegetarian, or have any food allergies. Then they would be asked to record everything
they eat or drink for some set period of time. Dietary intake can then be input into a
computer and the diet can be analysed to compare the person's average intake of calories
and nutrients to their needs. It's important that this be done as an average - what a
person eats in one day is not a fair basis to analyse their diet on. Generally at least
a week of records would be needed to make a fair judgement, and longer would be better.
There are a number of online services that can be used to assess your own diet, such as
www.mypyramid.gov and www.fitday.com.