This report evaluates the dietary and nutritional status of the U.S. population, as well as the factors that determine status, based on the data and information available through the nutrition monitoring activities conducted by the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services. In addition, it provides an analysis of the contributions of the National Nutrition Monitoring System in evaluating the relationship of dietary and nutritional factors in cardiovascular disease and iron nutriture. This is the second report to Congress on the National Nutrition Monitoring System and builds on the framework of the first report, Nutrition Monitoring in the United States-A Progress Report from the Joint Nutrition Monitoring Evaluation Committee, submitted in 1986.