Good nutrition can maintain health and prevent diseases, and nutrition surveys provide important information about the dietary patterns and health status of populations. For this assignment, choose a national or international survey (or database) mentioned in this week’s lesson.
Describe the survey’s objectives and methods, including administration and type and method of information collected (1 paragraph). Review the data until you find a fact or set of facts that you find interesting or surprising. You might notice that nutrient intake meets the DRIs in one age, race/ethnicity, income or gender group but not another, or that a particular nation has especially high rates of obesity and underweight at the same time.
Describe the information you found and explain its implications for health outcomes (additional research may be necessary). Also suggest possible reasons for the patterns/data –factors to consider may include access to food, education or cultural preferences. You may need to do external research to learn this information.
Then, find an original research (not review article) related to your topic. It can be a paper that uses the survey you chose and discusses the nutrient you chose, or it might be a paper investigating the relationship between the nutrient and health outcome(s) you chose. Summarize the paper in a paragraph.
Finally, write about the strengths and limitations of the research paper as well as your own thoughts on the public health nutrition implications of the research. Your initial post should be between 600 and 800 words. Your sources must include at least one original research article from a peer-reviewed journal.
What We Eat in America (WWEIA):
https://www.ars.usda.gov/northeast-area/beltsville-md-bhnrc/beltsville-human-nutrition-research-center/food-surveys-research-group/docs/wweianhanes-overview/
Please click on each topic and frequently asked question (except for the older fact sheets).
Also click on “data tables” (above the overview list)
https://www.ars.usda.gov/northeast-area/beltsville-md-bhnrc/beltsville-human-nutrition-research-center/food-surveys-research-group/docs/wweia-data-tables/
