The need for improved methods of diet assessment for developing and monitoring food policy in Eastern Europe

There is increasing evidence that diseases of major public health importance are causally related to nutritional imbalance. Development of nutrition policy to improve the nutritional status of a population requires reliable information about food consumption and its impact on the health of the population. Available methods are useful but not accurate enough. Assessment of the nutritional status of representative samples of the general population requires improved methods of dietary intake assessment. A combination of different methods provides more reliable information than the use of a single method. For example, comparison of food balance sheets and households budget surveys provides more useful information than either method alone. An international effort should be undertaken to identify reliable methods of dietary assessment suitable for all countries. Because the development of new methods would be time consuming, efforts should be focused on the selection of existing methods, their improvement, standardization, and implementation. International organizations such as the Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Health Organization should give high priority to the improvement of methods useful in nutritional epidemiological studies.