The issues in assessment and evaluation of diet in Asia

Dietary assessment provides information on what people eat and how well they eat. Recent trends in changes of health problems related to diet require more accurate evaluation of diet since now we know that both under- and over-consumption of nutrients can bring health risks. Non-traditional new components have been identified to be related to health. Also new evaluation tools, such as Dietary Reference Intakes or Food Guides are developed and used for dietary assessment. Dietary assessment in Asian region poses several challenges because of characteristics in diet, eating behaviours, and tools used in the process. Since many of these characteristics of Asian diet are considered to be related to health, either beneficial or detrimental, efforts are needed to develop methods and tools suitable to be used for Asian diet.