Usda's Supertracker Program

My Nutrition Summary

Food is a huge part of everyone’s lives, including my own. On April 8th and 9th, I tracked my food and physical activity using the USDA’s SuperTracker program. Using this technology, I got reports based on my consumption of food groups, calories, and nutrients. I also learned a lot about myself and my habits. Through using the SuperTracker, I became informed on what I am doing wrong, what I am doing right, what I am lacking, and of what I am consuming too much.

First of all, according to my Food Groups and Calories Report, my consumption levels were marked as “Under” for few food groups but for many sub-groups. For instance, the group indicating vegetable intake was marked as “OK” in general, but my consumption of the sub-groups “Dark

Much too often, I eat without realizing what I am consuming. While tracking my eating over the two-day period, I learned just how much I usually eat without even realizing it. I have a tendency to eat out of stress and out of boredom; tracking my eating really added a new sense of awareness to my eating habits. I was surprised to see how misleading it is to simply count calories. In the past when I have tried to lose weight, I only focused on calories instead of nutrients. Even though calories do play a large role in health, tracking my food intake brought to light just how many more components there are of healthy eating. From now on, I will definitely start paying more attention to factors other than the calorie count on nutrition labels. I also learned that my lifestyle includes very little physical activity and is incredibly inadequate compared to the USDA’s goals. Tracking my physical activity was a huge wake-up call for me, for it showed me just how little I get active. This assignment taught me many things about myself and was a really big learning experience for me, and I feel that I know much more now about healthy eating and living than I did