Whether you're a healthcare professional, nutritionist, or simply interested in tracking your own dietary intake, a well-designed nutrition assessment form is crucial for accurately evaluating dietary habits and nutritional needs.
In this article, we’ll start by explaining what nutritional assessment is and then give you the steps to create your own nutritional assessment form in Google Forms. Ready for a fitness journey? Let’s begin!
What is nutritional assessment for?
Nutritional assessment is a process for evaluating a person’s nutritional status and dietary intake. It involves gathering information on the individual’s dietary habits, body measurements, biochemical markers, and clinical indicators.
It is usually conducted by healthcare professionals, dieticians, or nutrition experts to address specific health concerns, improve overall health, or even reach personal health goals—such as increasing endurance.
A nutritional assessment form contains all the questions nutritionists must ask to assess their patients comprehensively. A well-crafted nutritional assessment form can:
- Guide personalized nutrition interventions
- Help monitor the health status of individuals
- Support clinical decision-making
- Inform public health policies and interventions
How to create a nutrition assessment form for dietitians
If you’re a dietician or a nutritional expert, here are the steps to creating your own nutrition assessment form:
Step 1: Create a new Google Form
Navigate to your Google Forms.
Click on the ‘Blank form’ button to create a new form.
Title your form appropriately and enter a description for it.
Step 2: Add fields for personal and contact information
Let’s start adding questions now. First, you must collect basic personal details and contact information. This section should have the following questions:
- Name
- Age and gender
- Contact information
- Insurance number
- Marital status
- Height and weight
Edit the default question to gather the name and opt for the ‘Short answer’ format with the button adjacent to the question field.
Click on the ‘Add question’ button to add the rest of the questions in this category.
Opt for the multiple-choice format to give easy options for questions wherever possible.
Step 3: Include questions for nutrition background
Once you’ve collected the personal details, it’s time to start gathering information on the individual’s nutrition background. This category includes questions like:
- How would you describe your current eating habits and dietary preferences?
- Do you have any dietary restrictions or food allergies?
- What is your typical daily fluid intake?
- Have you experienced any significant changes in weight or appetite recently?
- How often do you consume fruits and vegetables in your diet?
- Do you take any dietary supplements or vitamins regularly?
- Are you currently following any specific diet or meal plan?
Add a new question, as shown in the previous step, and choose the most appropriate format.
Google Forms offers two subjective question formats and three objective format types. For the question above, let’s pick the ‘Multiple choice’ format. Add the rest of the questions similarly.
If you’d like to allow the individual to upload ongoing meal plans or prescriptions, choose the ‘File Upload’ option.
To do this, draft your question and opt for the ‘File upload’ option.
Click ‘Continue’ in the confirmation window.
Now, you can set parameters around what type of file sizes of files you want your form to accommodate. It’s also a good idea to make this a mandatory question by toggling the ‘Required’ button to the off position.
Step 4: Allow them to indicate expectations and needs
Every client has a unique goal. Some want to lose weight, some want to gain muscle, some want increased longevity, and others want to prevent diseases. It's critical that you find out your client’s unique expectations and needs so that you can design a meal plan that helps their concerns specifically. Consider the following questions for this section:
- What are your primary goals or reasons for seeking nutrition counseling?
- How do you envision a nutritionist or dietitian helping you achieve your health goals?
- What challenges do you anticipate in making dietary changes?
- How motivated are you to make changes to your current diet and lifestyle?
- What support or resources do you feel you need to be successful in improving your nutrition?
Add these questions to your form and opt for the ‘Short answer’ or ‘Paragraph’ format for each. Answers to these questions will help you provide your clients with the help and guidance they need.
Step 5: Add field to enter meal plan information
Now that you know your client’s expectations, it’s time to start gathering information on their eating and lifestyle habits so that you can set them up for success. This category can include questions like:
- Can you describe a typical day of eating, including meals and snacks?
- What are your preferred meal times and eating schedule?
- Do you tend to eat out or cook meals at home more often?
- How often do you incorporate protein into your meals?
- Are there any cultural or religious dietary practices that influence your food choices?
- Do you experience any challenges with grocery shopping or food preparation?
Wherever possible, opt for multiple-choice or checkbox questions to make it easier and quicker for your clients to complete the form. If you like, you can include a payment option at the end of your assessment form here before you move on to creating a customized meal plan.
Step 6: Create an automated meal plan using Form Publisher
Time for the final step. You’ve collected the above information so that you can finally provide meal plan guidance to your clients. When you’ve had your patient complete the form, they can submit it for your review and you can add a proposed meal plan to the document. If only there was a way to automatically create documents from form submissions…
Guess what? Form Publisher gives you an easy and automated way to create customized meal plans using information you may already have in your Google Sheets. Learn how to generate documents in various file formats from Google Sheets data.
Automate your nutrition assessment form creation with Form Publisher
If you’re working with Google Forms, Form Publisher is here to make things even easier. You can create documents from form responses and sheet data, easily and automatically share them, and even store them in a predefined location. Try Form Publisher to automate your nutrition assessment form process.