GLOSSARY

Retrospective Dietary Assessment An approach that asks about food consumed in the past, relying on recall and appropriate prompts rather than prospective recording.

A dietary recall reconstructs a past eating period with systematic prompts for forgotten foods, quantities and preparation. A multiple-pass approach revisits the day in stages, improving detail without assuming perfect memory. Repeated recalls on different days help characterize variability. The interviewer's neutrality matters because judgment can alter reporting. A recall estimates reported intake, not nutrient absorption or individual requirements; combine it with the training schedule and other evidence before concluding that an athlete is adequately fueled or clinically deficient.

Portion assessment translates what a person reports into a usable quantity. Household measures, photographs, food models and scales offer different types of help; none eliminates uncertainty. Distinguish an individual's actual portion from a standardized serving used for analysis or labeling. Check density, container size, edible fraction and whether a photograph depicts the same food form. In an athlete's plan, practical examples should make adequate intake easier while allowing the assessor to explain how the reported amount was estimated and where uncertainty remains.

Usual intake describes a longer-term average rather than the intake of one isolated day. Day-to-day variation includes real differences between training, rest and competition days as well as measurement noise. Repeated observations should cover relevant conditions and be collected with a suitable method. Averaging a few unusual days can still give a misleading estimate. For the athlete, preserve useful information about distribution and timing: an acceptable weekly energy average can coexist with repeated underfueling around demanding sessions.

For example, revisit a training day in time order, then ask about drinks, sauces, snacks and products used during exercise. Use neutral prompts and clarify portions. Repeated recalls can describe variation, but they still need an appropriate schedule and should not be treated as direct measurements of energy expenditure.

Accuracy concerns closeness to an appropriate reference, while precision concerns repeatability; consistent measurements can still be systematically wrong. Validity asks whether a method supports its intended interpretation, and reliability asks how consistently it performs. Reporting error can reflect memory, burden, food omission or social pressure. An implausible estimate should prompt review rather than an accusation. Calibration may reduce specific errors under defined assumptions, but it does not turn every self-report into an exact measurement of an athlete's habitual intake.

Food composition analysis depends on matching the reported food to an appropriate database entry. Variety, brand, fortification, preparation and raw-versus-cooked weight can change the match. Missing data do not necessarily mean that a nutrient is absent. Recipes require ingredient amounts, edible yields and suitable retention assumptions. Record the database and version when comparability matters. A detailed software output remains an estimate; checking the food match and units can be more valuable than reporting many decimal places from uncertain intake data.

Choose a dietary assessment method according to the question, population and resources. A recent intake record can explore meal timing around training; a frequency questionnaire can describe longer-term patterns. Neither automatically establishes exact habitual intake. Combine food details with training, access, symptoms, medication and relevant measurements. Explain uncertainties and what the method cannot answer. Good assessment produces a decision that can be reviewed, rather than an impressive nutrient report whose apparent precision exceeds the quality of the information collected.