Personal Nutrition for Health Promotion - Case Study Example

Health and Nutrition Case History The patient is a 41year old female who has three children. She has been suffering from constipation for many years. She is diagnosed to be overweight and this contributes to the other health related problems. Apart from these problems she does not have any hereditary diseases and her parents died only at the age of 95. Though her parents were diseased, she has not inherited any of the hereditary diseases. But she suffers from constipation and this problem has been a regular one. Another major problem is her weight and to maintain a proper weight she should follow a diet that proposes the adequate nutrition. To get rid of these problems she has to reduce her weight and follow a diet that also includes the energy required in the form of proteins, carbohydrates and fat. This diet chart must include foods that help her to reduce the weight and to eradicate the problem of constipation. Method The main problem of the patient is constipation and to eradicate this problem a method should be followed. This method must include the dietary routine, exercise programs and the equipments used in this process must also be included. As the patient is suffering from weight issues, a weighing scale must be used regularly to check the weight of the patient. This will be of great help while preparing the diet chart for the patient. The patient's case history must be analyzed before beginning the diet program. The normal routine and the food habits must also be recorded in order to prepare an effective diet plan. This will ensure that the diet plan is completely tailor made for the particular patient. Dietary analysis must be performed to know the patient's normal diet and this will assist in the preparation of graphs that will exhibit the daily intake of calories and other nutrients. The dietary analysis must be done on consecutive days. The patient's diet was analyzed for three consecutive days and this made the process easier. The patient's complete food habits and each and every food intake were recorded separately. Recording the Diet The patient's diet was recorded from a Sunday till Tuesday. The breakfast, lunch, snacks and dinner were recorded in individual records. The accurate data was recorded and the analysis was performed on two weekdays and one weekend. This was done to know the eating habits during the weekends since people consume more during the weekends. This analysis included even the water intake during the three days. This would help to analyze the intake of liquid. The diet was recorded from Sunday's breakfast till Tuesday's dinner. The diet was recorded in a specific format to enable in the easy preparation of the final graph. The dietary observations for each day are stated below Sunday Day1 The patient had a breakfast of cucumber, carrots and a large pineapple. She also consumed lime and orange juice. She did not have sufficient water and her breakfast mainly had fruits and fruit juices. The patient had this breakfast around 10 am and she makes it a point to add more fruits and fruit products to her breakfast. Then she had a cup of water and a califonia roll for lunch. This was evident enough to prove that she does not consume any proper food during for lunch. Her lunch time is usually at 2.30 pm. She did not eat anything after her lunch. At night she had her dinner around 7.45 pm and it had some slices of wheat bread and cheese to accompany them. Then she also had a glass of water. This was her meal for the first day. Monday Day2 The patient had one hardboiled egg and a 450ml of warm water. Though she had water in her breakfast, just one egg could not make it wholesome. The breakfast was taken at around 8am in the morning. For lunch, she had nothing except the juice which she drank all through the afternoon. The juice was made of pure 1 litre of pineapple. The quantity of the juice was about 200ml that contained negligible amount of fat and salt. This shoes that she did not get enough nutrients that is required for the day. At 8.50pm, she had her dinner which was 2 eggs and frankfurters sausage, then tin of henz baked beans and some cold water. This was her menu for the second day. Tuesday Day3 On the third day, she had a toast of one wheat bread and then 500ml of hot chocolate without sugar. The breakfast was taken at 8.30 in the morning. She just had a can of pepsi for lunch. She did not have anything else in the afternoon which means she did not get the correct amount of calories required for the day. At night, she had a glass of ribenna juice and prawn fried rice. The dinner was taken at 8.45pm. Analyzing the Diet Once the diet is recorded it has to be analyzed. This will help to arrive at a decision regarding a proper diet chart that the patient must follow. The recorded diet will show the nutrients the patient gets from those foods. It would be better to analyze the amount of nutrients so that the diet can be modified to suit the patient's health condition. The nutrient content of each and every food that the patient consumes must be analyzed to calculate the total nutrients consumed by the patient on a single day. This must be followed for all the three days to find out the entire content of nutrients and this must be done to know the nutritive value of the foods. The main reason to carry out this analysis is to find out the reason for the patient's ill health. Once the analysis is made it would be easy to remodel the structure of diet and it would also reveal the patient's lifestyle. She does not consume nutritional foods and her lunch does not have any proper food. Instead she has rolls and tinned drinks that do not provide any source of energy. All this have made her situation worse and she finds it difficult to cope up with the persistent constipation problem. Though she is overweight she consumes more fat products like cheese and butter. She must avoid this so that she can control her weight. These fat products increase her weight which will again become a problem. Nutritional Information The patient does not follow a healthy food habit and a lifestyle. In either of the days she skipped either her lunch or dinner. This clearly states that the normal health condition is not stable. This contributes to the existing problems and makes them worse. The analysis revealed that the patient does not consume enough water and this is the main reason for constipation. Since the patient already has a complaint of constipation, the minimal consumption of water has added to the problem. The patient consumes more fruits than vegetables and this clearly shows that the essential nutrients and fiber content from the vegetables are not consumed by the patient. The following graph shows the number of calories that her food provides her. This calorie is calculated from the food that she takes on a single day. Figure 1: Calorie intake per day. The first part of the graph shows the amount of protein, carbohydrates and fat consumed by her. This also depicts that her intake of carbohydrates is more when compared to protein and fat. The second part of the graph portrays the percentage of the protein, carbohydrate and fat that is consumed by her. It clearly states that her calorie intake is around 1850calories per day. Figure 2: Weight Graph. The graph exhibits the increase in the weight of a person based on the calorific intake of the patient. If a person consumes around 1850calories per day, then their weight may get increased gradually. Figure 3: average percentage of each nutrient The graph represents the intake as a percentage of UK DRVs. The 3 day average of the nutrient is calculated and the percentage of each nutrient derived from the food is portrayed. Recommendation The recommended BMI (Body Mass Index) lies in the range of 22 to 25 whereas it is 33 for her which shows that her weight does not correspond to her height. The Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) is 17.1 Kcal/kg for her. The percentage of fat is 44.5 whereas the recommended range is 22 to 28. Thus the fat weight is also double the recommended range. This is the main reason for higher value of BMI. She has less amount of water content in her body which was evident from her intake for the 3 days. She has only 40% of water in her body while the recommended amount is 50% to 60%. The low water content and high fat content led to a weight of 88.8kg which is fairly higher than the normal weight of about 64kg. When compared to the recommended guidelines, the diet followed by the patient is not a balanced one. The patient does not receive sufficient amount of nutrients which is required by the body to carry out the day to day activities. It is found that the overall percentage intake of fat is more. The intake of energy is not appropriate for the patient because the amount of fat consumed is more. Thus the BMI is far more than the recommended range which implies that the person is over weighted. The patient's intake of salt is fairly less. A diet which has considerably low fat and high water content is recommended for the patient in order to regulate the body fluids. Fatty diets should be avoided in order to reduce the risk of being a victim of any disease. The patient can take breakfast which has high levels of protein. This helps the patient to be active the whole day by providing adequate energy. The lunch should contain moderate fat and carbohydrates which will provide her with the energy required for the latter part of the day (Sizer &Whitney,2006). The dinner should not be heavy and it should be lighter than the breakfast and the lunch. It should not have high fat content so that it can be easily digested. When the diet of the patient is regulated according to the given specifications, it might reduce the risk of obesity and other disease which are prone to occur due to the overweight. The patient will feel healthy and active throughout the day. The BMI can be brought down to normal level over a period of time when the recommended diet is followed. Reference: Boyle,M & Long,S., (2007).Personal nutrition California: Wadsworth Cengage Learning Sizer,F & Whitney,E., (2006).Nutrition: Concepts and Controversies California: Thomson Wadsworth Levy,T.,(2001).Optimal Nutrition for Optimal Health USA: Keats Publishing Farrell, M., (2007). Vol 2. Nutrition. U.K: Jones and Barlett Publishers. Insel, P., (2009). Nutrition. U.K: Jones & Barlett Publishers. Read More