Review of evaluation tools used to assess the impact of nutrition education on dietary intake and quality, weight management practices, and physical activity of low-income audiences

Nutrition education programs and social marketing campaigns frequently focu s on low-income audiences with the goal of improving dietary intake and qua lity, weight management practices, and physical activity. The impact of nut rition education can be assessed by measuring change in relation to any or all of these broad variables. Unfortunately, little information is availabl e concerning the reliability, validity, and sensitivity to change of measur es used to assess these constructs with low-income audiences of adults and adolescents. This article reviews the literature and discusses the types of available measures that have been used and evaluated for the above audienc es. It describes specific measures used to assess total diet, consumption o f food groups from the Food Guide Pyramid, and behaviors related to weight management and physical activity. Overall, this review suggests that there is a critical need for additional development and evaluation of dietary qua lity measurement tools for low-income and minority audiences.