DINO (Diet In Nutrients Out) - an integrated dietary assessment system

Abstract

Objective: The current paper describes Diet In Nutrients Out (DINO), an integrated dietary assessment system incorporating dietary data entry and nutritional analysis within one platform for use in dietary assessment in small-scale intervention studies to national surveys.

Design: DINO contains >6000 food items, mostly aggregated composites of branded foods, across thirty-one main food groups divided into 151 subsidiary groups for detailed reporting requirements, with fifty-three core nutrient fields.

Setting: MRC Human Nutrition Research (HNR), Cambridge, UK and MRC Keneba, Gambia.

Subjects: DINO is used across dietary assessment projects at HNR and MRC Keneba.

Results: DINO contains macro- and micronutrients as well as additional variables of current research and policy interest, such as caffeine, whole grains, vitamin K and added sugars. Disaggregated data are available for fruit, vegetables, meat, fish and cheese in composite foods, enabling greater accuracy when reporting food consumption or assessing adherence to dietary recommendations. Portion sizes are categorised in metric and imperial weights, with standardised portion sizes for each age group. Regular reviews are undertaken for portion sizes and food composition to ensure contemporary relevance. A training programme and a checking schedule are adhered to for quality assurance purposes, covering users and data. Eating context questions are integrated to record where and with whom the respondent is eating, allowing examination between these factors and the foods consumed.

Conclusions: An up-to-date quality-assured system for dietary assessment is crucial for nutritional surveillance and research, but needs to have the flexibility to be tailored to address specific research questions.

Keywords: Coding; DINO; Dietary assessment; Nutrient analysis.

Fig. 1

Coding screen as displayed in the Diet In Nutrients Out (DINO) dietary assessment program, displaying the available coding fields for each food entry including food and portion size entries, together with eating context responses

Fig. 2

(a) Blank food code screen in the Diet In Nutrients Out (DINO) dietary assessment program. The full food code description, unique food code number and appropriate food group are required. Nutrients are allocated by manual entry with fields highlighted as −1 representing missing or unknown values. Quality assurance checks for calculation errors are incorporated and shown in the shadow boxes alongside some nutrients. The sources tab enables documentation of data sources and additional notes to be made with each food code. (b) Blank coding food screen in the DINO dietary assessment program. Coding description is entered and a coding number automatically generated to prevent duplication. The corresponding food code is selected together with a food group to facilitate searching using food trees. Portion sizes are added and fields for gram and ounce are automatically entered. Portions are date specific, allowing amendments to be made during coding projects

Fig. 3

An example of food and nutrient data output generated by the Diet In Nutrients Out (DINO) dietary assessment program. The variables included in each analysis can be specified by the user to produce tailored output, with nutrient data displayed by individual eating occasions or as mean daily intakes