Evaluating the Validity of the "Categories" Method: a New Method for Self-report Assessment of Daily Calorie Intake

Weight loss is mainly a result of reduction in daily caloric intake. Hence many people are interested in counting and tracking their daily caloric intake but In fact only 9% of people in the USA can accurately estimate the number of calories they eat (International Food Information Council Foundation, May 2011)

According to the well-known method the investigators need to know the caloric value of each and every component our dish or meal. For example: a Breakfast that contains a glass of orange juice, a small bagel, spread with cream cheese shall be calculated as : orange juice 90 kcal + bagel 192 kcal +cream cheese 98 kcal=total 380 kcal.

This method is very complicated, especially when the investigators need to calculate a dish that its ingredients are not straightforward such as: Cob salad or Shepherd's pie, Even a slice of pizza, it is very difficult to estimate the fat, carbohydrate or protein a piece of pie contains let alone the caloric volume.

The investigators proposed a new method called "The categories method": a single categorical estimation per meal based on a set of five categories:

Category 1 less than 200 kcal, Category 2 200-500 kcal, Category 3 501-800 kcal, Category 4 801-1200 kcal, Category 5 above 1200 kcal