Measurement of adherence to prescribed dietary advice typically
involves: 1) assessment ofwhat the client eats through self-reported
methods (e.g. 24-hour recall, food records, food frequency questionnaires,
diet history); and 2) determination of the degree to
which the diet approximates the recommended dietary plan (e.g.
difference between clients’ recommendedmacronutrient goals and
their self-reported intake). Although sparsely used, more objective
measures of adherence to diets also exist (e.g. 24-hour urinary
sodium excretion to assess adherence to a low sodium diet (Chung
2008)). However, there is no gold standard for the accurate determination
of dietary intake. Self-report of energy intake is a characteristic
inherent to nutrition-related topics and is found to be underestimated
compared to objective measures such as resting energy
expenditure assessed by indirect calorimetry (Asbeck 2002).