Principles of Nutritional Assessment, 2d ed.

Principles of Nutritional Assessment. Second Edition

Gibson RS. Oxford University Press, New York, 2005, 908 pages, $195.00 (hardback), ISBN 0-19-517169-1 Most readers of this review will already be familiar with the first edition of this text published in 1990, and since then, widely used as a reference book by both students and nutrition professionals. Principles of Nutritional Assessment is not a book one reads from cover to cover, but refers to from time to time. Just as well, as the second edition is about 30% longer and correspondingly heavier (1.6 kg!). This is not because the book covers a wider range of topics but because there is new and/or updated material both for 'hot' and not so hot topics. For example Validity in dietary assessment methods now has three times as many references as in the first edition and Food consumption at the national and household levels has the same number of references as in the first edition but 80% of them are new. Trace minerals are now covered in two chapters--one covering chromium, copper and zinc and the other iodine and selenium. This reflects the extensive developments in methods and indices for the assessment and evaluation of these micronutrients. Notably for these chapters, which deal with objective measurements, a higher proportion of the original references (60%) have been retained than for the chapters relating to dietary assessment (15-50%). For those of us concerned with dietary studies, this is a clear indication of the direction in which we should be heading!

All the chapters on laboratory assessment of nutritional status now include, in addition to information about newer biochemical tests and the use of multiple indices, for each nutrient an expanded introductory section, covering functions, absorption, metabolism, deficiency, food sources and dietary intakes and the effects of high intakes. As a result rather more then half of the text is now devoted to laboratory assessment of nutrient status. Overall, however, the content balance remains much the same as for the first edition with about a quarter of the book devoted to dietary assessment.

New material related to dietary assessment covers all aspects of the process. Measuring food consumption of individuals describes technical developments in data collection methods and the data requirements and statistical methods for different uses of the data such as estimating a group mean, the population percentage 'at risk', ranking individuals and determining usual intakes for individuals. A completely new section on the design of relative validity studies in Validity in dietary assessment methods and more extensive treatment of the statistical approaches available for assessing validity reflects the increasing use of biomarkers, such as doubly labelled water and other independent approaches, for validating energy and nutrient intake. The chapter on Evaluation of nutrient intakes and diets has also been extensively updated to include the rationale for multiple nutrient reference levels and new approaches for assessment of dietary inadequacy as well as material on the use of food-based dietary guidelines.

Although the proportion of the text devoted to anthropometry is slightly reduced this material has also been extensively updated. Anthropometric assessment of body size (formerly assessment of growth) now includes material on body mass index as an indirect indicator of overweight and obesity not only in adults but also in children, and Anthropometric assessment of body composition now devotes as much space to information about waist circumference as an indicator of abdominal fat as it does to waist-hip ratio as an indicator of central obesity.

Clearly there is plenty of new material to chew on and absorb, whether one's interests are in dietary, anthropometric or biochemical assessment and both nutrition professionals and students would be well advised to invest in the new edition. At the same time the temptation to throw out the first edition should be strongly resisted as it contains much valuable reference material, which although no longer current, provides a valuable record of the changing practice of nutritional assessment.

Ingrid Rutishauser, BScNut, MScEpidemiol, RPHNutr

Academic Visitor, Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences

Deakin University

Victoria, Australia