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Dietary Assessment in Behavioral Medicine

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Handbook of Behavioral Medicine

Abstract

Nutritional status is an important predictor of health status. Diets high in plant foods with moderate sources of lean protein and minimal fat and alcohol are inversely associated with cardiovascular disease, obesity, several cancers, and diabetes. Paradoxically, measuring diet is one of the most arduous tasks in behavioral medicine. Today’s varied and complex food offerings coupled with eating habits that are rapidly shifting from primarily home-based cooking to those that rely on restaurant and prepared foods make it a challenge to accurately capture usual food intake. In addition, there is recognition that using standard dietary assessment instruments, participants underreport food intake, which greatly complicates the ability to assess associations of diet with disease risk. Newer approaches of dietary assessment, such as those that use digital technology to assess diet, are likely to be used with increasing frequency in the future. However, it is unclear whether use of these new technologies will result in less underreporting and more accurate data collection. Non-traditional dietary assessment tools include household food inventories, cash register receipts of foods purchased, and questionnaires that assess mindful eating and food behaviors. Because there are strong social and cultural influences on dietary practices, efforts to change eating habits, whether in the clinical or research setting, should ideally include a multidisciplinary approach using the expertise from nutrition science, behavioral medicine, and other relevant disciplines. This chapter describes both standard and newer dietary assessment tools and provides advantages and disadvantages of each method.

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  1. Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, 1100 Fairview Avenue North, M4-B402, Seattle, WA, 98109-1024, USA

    Marian L. Neuhouser

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  1. Marian L. Neuhouser
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Correspondence to Marian L. Neuhouser .

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  1. St Georges Hospital Medical School, Dept. Psychology, University of London, Cranmer Terrace, London, SW17 0RE, United Kingdom

    A. Steptoe

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Neuhouser, M.L. (2010). Dietary Assessment in Behavioral Medicine. In: Steptoe, A. (eds) Handbook of Behavioral Medicine. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-09488-5_4

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