How Healthy is Your Diet?

Document the type, serving amount, food group, caloric content, and fat content of all foods and beverages that you consume in a four-day period. Use the spreadsheet (click on arrow at right) to calculate totals of calories consumed and gat grams consumed. Use the following web sites for calculating calorie and fat content of the foods that you eat. Food content calculator: http://www.ag.uiuc.edu/~food-lab/nat/stepone.cgi Berkeley Nutrition fat screener: http://www.nutritionquest.com/fat_screener.html Find the food composition and caloric content of just about anything: http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/Data/index.html Fast food: http://www.olen.com/food

Analyze the contents of your spreadsheet to determine:

1. Did you consume less than, adequate or too many calories to maintain your weight at its current level? (Refer to the previous activity where this information was calculated).

2. Was your diet balanced based on the food pyramid guidelines? Which food groups were inadequately represented in your diet? Which food groups were adequately represented? Did you overeat in some of the food groups? Which essential nutrients were lacking in your diet, if any? Which did you consume in excess? 

3. Does your current eating pattern, if it continues unaltered over time, put you in a high-risk category for any diseases? Which ones? Explain.

4. Based on your analysis, determine what changes you can make in your diet to make it a balanced diet that supplies adequate amounts of all essential nutrients and is adequate in calories to maintain weight, not lose or gain. If you are overweight or underweight, you may determine the changes necessary to bring you to your target weight or target BMI. 

To calculate your target weight or BMI, click on the following web address. http://health.excite.com/bmi_calc

To calculate the number of calories burned during exercising, click on the following web address: http://health.excite.com/cal_calc

To calculate the healthy weight range for your height and body frame size, click on the following address:

http://www.metlife.com/Lifeadvice/Tools/Heightnweight/

Discovery Health’s variety of calculators: http://health.discovery.com/tools/calculators_index.html

Discovery Health’s nutrition assessment tools (calcium, etc.) http://health.discovery.com/tools/assessments_index.html

To submit questions to a registered dietician, click on this link to a discussion board:

http://my.webmd.com/roundtable_topic/21

5. Using a spreadsheet format similar to the format used to document your food intake, create a four-day menu to accommodate the changes in your diet that you determined as a result of your analysis. You should include, at a minimum, categories for food type, serving size, food group, calories, fat content, and total categories for calories, fat and number of servings in each food group. You may also wish to include totals of other nutrients in the foods, such as vitamins and minerals. Your spreadsheet should include some method for demonstrating your goal of weight loss, weight gain or maintenance of current weight. This does not have to be done on a daily basis, just for the total of the four days.

Click here to submit your answers to the instructor.

While you’re working on your menu, click on the camera image to the right and watch Connecticut Culinary Arts students at work creating their own meals in their school kitchen!

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