Principles of Nutritional Assessment

A text on the methods - dietary, anthropometric, laboratory and clinical - of assessing the nutritional status of populations and individuals in the hospital or the community. This second edition includes: data from national nutritional surveys in the US and Europe; information about iron, vitamin A and iodine; and improvements in data handling. This is a comprehensive text on the methods - dietary, anthropometric, laboratory and clinical - of assessing the nutritional status of populations and of individuals in the hospital or the community. The second edition incorporates recent data from national nutritional surveys in the US and Europe; the flood of new information about iron, vitamin A and iodine; the role of folate in preventing neural tube defects; the use of HPLC techniques and enzyme assays; improvements in data handling; and many other developments since 1990.

This comprehensive text is the first to provide a detailed discussion of dietary, anthropometric, laboratory, and clinical nutritional assessment procedures used in both hospitals and communities. Offering an international perspective it covers the scientific basis, advantages, limitations, and applicability of different methods, as well as the use of appropriate reference data. Quantitative aspects of dietary assessment are stressed and highly informative sections of precision and validity are included. The anthropometric section gives readers a detailed review of available reference data and methods for assessing body composition in the community and laboratory. The growing importance of trace elements in human nutrition, and new developments in the nutritional assessment of hospital patients, are also highlighted.