Fundamentals of Food Technology

Assessment of Nutritional Status

• Assessment of nutritional status of community is one of the steps in the formulation of any public health strategy to combat malnutrition. The principle aim of such an assessment is to determine the type, magnitude and distribution of malnutrition in different geographic areas, to identify ‘at risk’ groups and to determine the contributory factors. In addition, factual evidence of the exact magnitude of malnutrition is essential to sensitize administrators and politicians to obtain allocation of material and human resources and to plan appropriately.

Nutritional status can be assessed by the following methods


Direct methods	Indirect methods
Anthropometry	Dietary assessment
Clinical examination	Vital health statistics
Biophysical or radiological examination
Functional assessment
Laboratory and Biochemical estimation