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Nutrition · Chapter 13

The ABCDs of Assessment

No single test captures how a person is nourished, so assessment leans on four kinds of evidence — Anthropometric, Biochemical, Clinical, and Dietary. Tap a letter to see what it measures. For the anthropometric method, slide the measurements and watch the numbers recompute; for the others, tap the individual tests, signs, and intake tools inside each.

Pick a method

Reading the four together

Each letter answers a different question — the body's dimensions, the chemistry inside it, the signs on its surface, and what actually goes in — and each has blind spots the others cover. A low lab value with no dietary change points elsewhere; a thin diet with normal labs may be caught early. Assessment is combining the letters, never crowning one. Some texts extend the list to Economic/environmental and Functional measures, but the core four are the ABCDs. None of this is a diagnosis, and none of it ranks a body or a way of eating as better or worse.
Four methodstap a letter to begin
The four methods
Assessment describes; it does not judge. Every measure here is a screening or monitoring tool read in clinical context — not a diagnosis, a dose, or a verdict on a person's health or eating. No food or body size is “good,” “bad,” or “clean.” A number tells you what something contains or measures, not what it is worth. Interpretation and any plan belong to a qualified clinician working with the whole picture.