Nutritional Requirements are standards developed by agencies to prevent deficiency diseases and reduce chronic diseases. These standards include the Estimated Average Requirement, Recommended Dietary Allowance, Adequate Intake, and Tolerable Upper Intake Level, which define daily nutrient needs. Determining energy needs through the Estimated Energy Requirement is important because percentages on nutrition labels are based on a 2000 calorie diet, but needs vary by age, gender, activity level and more. Assessing macronutrient balance through the Acceptable Macronutrient Distribution Ranges can also indicate dietary balance.

1. Nutritional Requirements
Achieving adequate nutrition is something that has great implications for our health. The three
leading causes of death (heart disease, cancer, and stroke) each have some dietary risk factors.
Agencies have developed Nutrient Requirements or Dietary Reference Intakes (DRIs). These
standards have been developed for healthy people and their aim is to prevent deficiency diseases
and reduce chronic diseases. The DRIs have several components:
Estimated Average Requirement (EAR)
Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA)
Adequate Intake (AI)
Tolerable Upper Intake Level (UL)
The EAR is the average daily intake level of a nutrient to meet the needs of half of the
healthy people in a particular life stage or gender group. This is used to determine the
RDA of a nutrient.
The RDA is the average daily nutrient intake level that meets the needs of 97 to 98% of a
healthy people in a particular category.
The AI is the recommended average daily nutrient intake level. These are used when the
RDA is unavailable. Some examples of this would be for calcium, vitamin D, vitamin K,
and fluoride.
The UL is the highest average daily intake level likely to pose no risk of adverse health
effects to most people. Individuals who consume above the UL have an increased risk
for toxic effects.
When determining what our Daily Values of nutrients should be we need to first address what or
energy needs are. The Estimated Energy Requirement (EER) is the average dietary energy
intake to maintain balance in a healthy adult. The EER is impacted by age, gender, weight,
height, and level of physical activity. When looking at a nutrition label, all of the percentages of
nutrient intake are based upon a 2000 kilocalorie diet. Depending on one’s individual energy
needs, we may need more than this value, or we may need less.
One method to assess balance in our diet is to look at the percentage of kilocalories ingested
from each of the macronutrients. The National Academy of Sciences developed the Acceptable
Macronutrient Distribution Ranges (AMDR) for each of the macronutrients. The United States
Department of Agriculture has also developed guidelines. These items will be detailed in a
future lesson.