Indian Journal of Forensic and Community Medicine 2023;10(1):4–10 Content available at: https://www.ipinnovative.com/open-access-journals Indian Journal of Forensic and Community Medicine Journal homepage: https://www.ijfcm.org/ Review Article Recommended dietary allowances, ICMR 2020 guidelines: A practical guide for bedside and community dietary assessment – A review Deepthi R 1 , Anil N S 1 , Narayanaswamy D M 2 , Sathiabalan M 1, *, Balakrishnan R 1 , Ashwani Lonimath 1 1 Dept. of Community Medicine, ESIC Medical College & PGIMSR, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India 2 ESIC Medical College & PGIMSR, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India ARTICLE INFO Article history: Received 09-12-2022 Accepted 15-12-2022 Available online 25-04-2023 Keywords: Dietary assessment RDA India Medical Education 24hour dietary recall ABSTRACT Assessment of diet bedside and in the community is crucial for the management and prevention of various ailments. Recommended dietary allowances and nutritional requirements of humans is a growing science that keeps changing, hence medical fraternity needs to be updated. ICMR-NIN are the nodal agencies in India for refining and reformulating dietary needs as per the nutritional transition occurring globally. They have published Nutrient Requirements for Indians: Recommended Dietary Allowances and Estimated Average Requirements - A Report of the Expert Group 2020, consisting of vital changes which are developed to satisfy the needs of the healthy population, keeping in view the reduction of disease risk and maintaining optimal health of the population. Most textbooks of community medicine have not yet adopted the newer recommendations and it is crucial that current students follow the paradigm shift which has happened in nutritional needs. The twenty-four-hour (24 hr) semi-quantitative dietary recall method is the preferred dietary assessment method at the bedside and community due to its less administration time and usability even on illiterates. It is considered the best method when there is no patience or motivation to answer food-related questions. Here is an attempt to compile and simplify all required information for dietary assessment from reliable sources in one place which empowers healthcare professionals to perform a dietary assessment. This is an Open Access (OA) journal, and articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License, which allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as appropriate credit is given and the new creations are licensed under the identical terms. For reprints contact: reprint@ipinnovative.com 1. Introduction The objective of dietary assessment is to recognize suitable and actionable changes in a person’s diet to advance their health and well-being. India is a socially and ethnically diverse country with diverse dietary practices linked to its exclusive religious and socioeconomic heterogeneity. 1 Food is an important part of human health as Hippocrates rightly mentions ‘Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food and ‘All diseases begin in the gut’. It is necessary to assess nutrition at the primary care setting level. There are various methods of dietary assessment, * Corresponding author. E-mail address: sathiabalnm@gmail.com (Sathiabalan M). but the 24-hr semi-quantitative dietary recall method can capture comprehensively the regional, ethnic, religious, and socio-economic heterogeneity of dietary habits within India. https://doi.org/10.18231/j.ijfcm.2023.002 2394-6768/© 2023 Innovative Publication, All rights reserved. 4