NIN survey of dietary habits in TS underway

Tarnaka: The National Institute of Nutrition (NIN) it has launched an online e-survey in an endeavour to generate a national-level participatory real time data on food intakes, dietary habits and health indicators for mapping nutrition and health status of people across the country.

ICMR-NIN has invited people of all age groups to visit the NIN website and fill in a simple e-survey form voluntarily.

Considering that there are shifts in agricultural production, food production, availability and accessibility of foods and their consumption, changes are bound to happen in the dietary patterns and hence the health risks, it said.

"Monitoring of food intakes, nutrition and health status of population should be dynamic in nature to enable the planners, implementers and developmental partners to revise and design new nutrition and health intervention programmes. We hope this experiment of e-survey will help us fill this gap reasonably," ICMR-NIN Director, Dr Hemalatha R., said.

There are two types of e-survey forms available on NIN's website – one is for adults (above 18 years) to collect self-reported data on nutrition status, food frequency and intakes; and the second form of parents/caregivers of children below two years of age, wherein they are expected to fill in the information related to infant and young children feeding (IYCF), especially in terms of food frequency, diversity and nutritional status.

Immediately after filling in e-survey forms, the respondents (both adults as well as parents of children below two years) can get a quick glance of their nutritional status or the child's nutritional status based on the data provided online.