Assessment: Food Tracker

Directions

For one weekday (select a day that reflects how you normally eat), record all food and liquid you consume. Don’t forget about snacks, sodas, and high calorie condiments such as mayonnaise.  Then, analyze your intake:

  • Go to the USDA SuperTracker website and select the Food Tracker.
  • Create a profile and follow the site directions to input your food data into the Food Tracker (write your user name and password somewhere so you do not forget them).  You will use your data to compile two reports.  First, click on “My Reports” at the top of the page and select the “Food Groups and Calories” report.  Create your report and export it as a .pdf file. Then, select “Nutrients Reports,” create your report and save it as a .pdf file.
  • Once you have compiled these reports, in a separate document write your reflections about your information.  In your reflections, answer the following questions:
    • What was your daily caloric intake? Did you exceed your recommended caloric intake? Did you meet your fruit and vegetable recommendation? Did you meet your fiber requirement? If not, what could you do to improve? How much saturated fat did you consume? Did you exceed the recommendation? Did you consume too much sodium? Enough calcium? Did you consume too much cholesterol? How many empty calories did you consume?  Did you exceed your empty calorie limit?  Are you happy with the overall results of the analysis? What do you need to change about your diet?
  • There will be three separate documents for this assignment: two pdf files (your reports) and one Word document (your reflections).
  • Upload all three directly via the link above in the same submission. 

 

Grading

This assignment is worth 10 points maximum. Your work will be assessed using the following Nutrition Analysis Grading Rubric:

Criteria

Absent

Incomplete

Complete

Food groups and calories report

0 Points

 0 Points

2 Points

Nutrients report

0 Points

 0 Points

2 Points

Reflection

0 Points

 2.5 Points

Up to 2.5 if missing answers to some of the questions listed in the assignment instructions

5 Points

Well thought out reflection addressing all questions listed in the instructions. If you score poorly in one or more sections, be specific about the strategies you will use to correct the problem. For instance: write consume more yogurt, rather than consume more calcium; write limit frozen dinners (which are high in sodium), rather than decrease sodium consumption. When you name the food you create a more specific strategy.

Results make sense

0 Points

 0 Points

1 Point

Always make sure your results make sense. If your caloric intake for the day was 600 kcal for example, go back and see if you forgot to enter one or more of your meals/snacks. If you were sick and did not eat much all day, this is not a good day to select for this assignment (see instructions). If your daily calorie intake really is abnormally low (or high), please address it in the reflections so that I know you are aware of it and that you did not simply make a mistake when entering the data.