Everything You Must Know About The 24-Hour Dietary Recall Technique

A 24-hour dietary recall is a tool for diet evaluation consisting of a survey method in which people are required to remember all of the food and drink they have ingested in the past 24 hours. It can also be done in a self administered way. The 24-hour diet recollection depends on a professional interviewer, a precise intake memory, an ability to measure food intake, and the honesty of the interview subject not to misreport.

A dietary recall can be implemented through a call, is ideal for large surveys, and has a less burden on the participants. During the interview, the candidates are asked to describe the foods and drinks they have taken in the past 24 hours. The candidates can also be asked to provide more information than what they were initially asked. The goal of this free structure of the interview is to help generate the most thorough summary of the meals and liquids ingested in the past 24 hours. This information can consist of the time of day, food source, and serving size of meals. Usually, a 24-hour dietary recall is finished within 20-60 minutes. This technique is most precise for each subject when conducted multiple times. The 24-hour dietary recollection is more engaging than other approaches, thereby providing the investigator and the participant with a way to communicate during the recollection. The investigator will ask the participant to remember their food and drink intake by time period and connect it to regular activities.

Why is dietary recollection necessary?

The 24-hour diet recollections are used by social scientists, nutrition specialists, and medical professionals. Nutritional data for such recollections are best analysed by nutritional assessment programs that are computer-based.

A study conducted in 2013, concluded that the 24-hour dietary recall performed multiple times is an efficient technique for evaluating dietary intake of children of Somali or Iraqi born mothers in Norway. It has been calculated that the association between 24-hour dietary recalls and food frequency surveys is 0.60–0.70. In addition, 24-hour diet recalls calculate consumption with less bias than surveys on food intake.