Nutrition assessments are very important in human medicine as in most cases acute and chronic malnutrition are common clinical findings during clinical examinations. Malnutrition is defined as the inadequate supply of a nutrient that interferes with an individual’s growth, development or health maintenance. Over-nutrition is the excessive intake of nutrients, in most cases macronutrients and calories which increases risk of many chronic diseases in humans.
Nutrition in humans is assessed in the following ways; direct and indirect methods. The direct methods deal with individuals and measures objective criteria, while indirect methods use indices at community health level that reflect nutritional status. Some of the direct methods include;
1. Anthropometric methods
2. Clinical methods
3. Biochemical and laboratory methods
4. Dietary evaluation methods
The Importance of Nutritional Assessments include the following.
• The nutritional assessments help us to identify individuals or populations that are at a risk of becoming Malnourished
• They also help us understand and identify individuals or populations that are already malnourished
• They help governments, Non-governmental organisations and other private sector players to identify community needs and be able to design or develop better health care programs for certain groups of people.
• The nutritional assessments help us to measure the impact of the nutritional programs & different intervention by governments,